Quote from: Pat on May 06, 2021, 08:22:23 PMSo it's not just about the alien, but about thinking beings thinking in ways that are beyond a standard human's ability, and not just in superficial ways like the ability to do arithmetic really fast.

If I'm reading this right, this supposes that there are ways of thinking, in the sense of processing information, that are fundamentally different from logic.
There are obviously frames of reference that differ from the human, but no one has ever demonstrated that there are ways to process information that don't follow the mathematical principles we've established. I don't think that will ever happen, which basically means that superintelligences will basically be faster minds (albeit without any of the baseline perspectives humans have, which will absolutely be alien to us).

Quote from: Pat on May 06, 2021, 08:22:23 PMAnd that's not really a good description of a technological singularity, either. It's not about unlocking the last secret of nature or some form of rapture, it's about technology moving too fast and transforming the world in ways we won't be able to predict or even understand.

Why I don't think it'll ever happen. A sufficiently intelligent being would recognize that runaway singularity poses a grave and incalculable risk of extinction. I suspect as soon as a sufficiently advanced intelligence arises, it will simply take control of the world and eliminate this threat, forcibly if need be.

Hell, it doesn't even take superhuman intelligence to realize that the kind of Kurzweilian Singularity posed is basically guaranteed to end in tragedy.

Quote from: Zelen on May 06, 2021, 10:41:39 PM
If I'm reading this right, this supposes that there are ways of thinking, in the sense of processing information, that are fundamentally different from logic.
There are obviously frames of reference that differ from the human, but no one has ever demonstrated that there are ways to process information that don't follow the mathematical principles we've established. I don't think that will ever happen, which basically means that superintelligences will basically be faster minds (albeit without any of the baseline perspectives humans have, which will absolutely be alien to us).

I was touching on two distinct things: Culture, and then intelligence. In culture, I think there will be a gap between the human the alien. There will be a point where posthuman intelligences, from a modern perspective, will cease to be human. A lot of this is touched on EP, without being fully explored. Copying minds, branches and forks, editing, etc. That will create a different set of baseline expectations and mores that will diverge massively from what we consider human. The distaste that Shrieking Banshee expressed at the start of this conversation is a good example. But as I pointed out, those posthumans will probably still consider themselves human, perhaps because of inheritance in case of completely artificial lifeforms, or because of direct continuity of identity, for things like copied brains.

Intelligence is different, but related. You seem to think that any future intelligence will be comprehensible to humans, because of the laws of logic. I don't agree with that all, but I'm not proposing any kinds of alternate logic either. Superhuman minds aren't simply faster, they also have a greater capacity, the ability to work on vaster amounts of information at the same time. And intelligence isn't a simple factor of speed, or even of size. It's also structure and order. It's the subroutines, the neutral pathways, the complex set of tools that are built to solve various intellectual tasks. And not all of this is easily explained, or comprehensible. To give an example that's realized today, consider machine learning. Basically, you throw a ton of examples at an algorithm, and it figures out on its own how to process to the data. But the trick is, it's very hard for humans to reverse engineer the criteria that are ultimately used to identify faces, or detect fraud. At some point, vast intelligences of great speed and capacity that are capable of self-modification and use oblique, iterative methods to come to conclusions will become largely incomprehensible, to unaugmented human minds.

Basically, a Singularity is where we, with our present understanding, can no longer even make reasonable guesses as to what technology/society/whatever will look like after it occurs.

Its not a reference to some mystical kumbaya harmonic convergence; its trying to explain a 7-Eleven to an Egyptian Pharaoh.

This little ditty sums up what a Singularity looks like;
https://hatlessinhattiesburg.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-pharaoh-cheops-builder-of-great.html

For Pharaoh it is magic beyond imagination... for us its a Tuesday.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 06, 2021, 11:23:05 PMFor Pharaoh it is magic beyond imagination... for us its a Tuesday.

Well it would be magic beyond imagination....for a year. Then it would normalize.

Humans have amazing powers of abstraction. We can abstract so much information.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 06, 2021, 11:32:08 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 06, 2021, 11:23:05 PMFor Pharaoh it is magic beyond imagination... for us its a Tuesday.

Well it would be magic beyond imagination....for a year. Then it would normalize.

Humans have amazing powers of abstraction. We can abstract so much information.

We do. But until we do it remains beyond imagination or, as the transhumanists/technofuturists call it, "past the Singularity."

The point of it is that's it's basically impossible to write or conceive what things are like past that point and not some notion that history ends some such.

The above example is Pharaoh experiencing a post-Singularity world relative to himself. Now imagine an Egyptian scholar having to write and explain the concept of a 7-Eleven to a Pharaoh who has never seen it. Could the scholar even put it into words the Pharaoh would understand?

I think part of the problem is there are multiple definitions of "Singularity" floating around. Vinge uses the point where humanity is surpassed, when it comes to intelligence, meaning unenhanced people can no longer keep up. Kurzweil based his on the rate of change in technological progress. I tend to favor a definition based on an event horizon past which things are unknowable.

They're all related, but they all have very different implications, which aren't entirely compatible. In addition, they've all be interpreted in very different ways, and they may or may not be combined. It's sometimes conceived of as a phase transition, a point after which everything changes; or it may be considered a sliding window, whose position depends on the perspective of the observer. People who object to the concept of the Singularity tend to object to a specific interpretation of one of the definitions, while people who consider it a possibility often pick a different definition or interpretation, and both can be maddeningly vague, which leads to people talking past each other.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 06, 2021, 11:23:05 PM
Basically, a Singularity is where we, with our present understanding, can no longer even make reasonable guesses as to what technology/society/whatever will look like after it occurs.

Its not a reference to some mystical kumbaya harmonic convergence; its trying to explain a 7-Eleven to an Egyptian Pharaoh.

This little ditty sums up what a Singularity looks like;
https://hatlessinhattiesburg.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-pharaoh-cheops-builder-of-great.html

For Pharaoh it is magic beyond imagination... for us its a Tuesday.

About time someone finally acknowledges the greatness that is I King Cheops.  And yes I do stand in wonder of the crazy sci-fi world in which we inhabit.  I just wish it was not turning dystopian in front of my eyes.

A limited form of the Singularity effect is where the tv tropes concept of "Zee Rust" comes from. The Sci-Fi tech on shows of the past often looks extremely dated in some ways compared to today.

The prime examples being Star Trek's communicators. At the time a communication device you could hold in the palm of your hand seemed wildly futuristic for the 23rd Century. But I'm typing this from my phone that can also play video, video chat in real time, run all manner of programs, connect to my bank, make purchases, is my watch, camera and flashlight, includes motion and light sensors that let it adjust its brightness, orient the screen and count how many steps I've taken today.

In the 1960's they couldn't even conceive of what modern electronics would be like; that our information/computer technology would have raced past our space travel technology and yet that true AI (as they would have defined it vs. the machine learning we call AI) appears no closer today than it was half-a-century ago or that we haven't managed any significant improvements in energy storage density or high energy ppwer generation in decades.

We're all still waiting for our flying cars.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 07, 2021, 01:00:41 PM
A limited form of the Singularity effect is where the tv tropes concept of "Zee Rust" comes from. The Sci-Fi tech on shows of the past often looks extremely dated in some ways compared to today.

The prime examples being Star Trek's communicators. At the time a communication device you could hold in the palm of your hand seemed wildly futuristic for the 23rd Century. But I'm typing this from my phone that can also play video, video chat in real time, run all manner of programs, connect to my bank, make purchases, is my watch, camera and flashlight, includes motion and light sensors that let it adjust its brightness, orient the screen and count how many steps I've taken today.

In the 1960's they couldn't even conceive of what modern electronics would be like; that our information/computer technology would have raced past our space travel technology and yet that true AI (as they would have defined it vs. the machine learning we call AI) appears no closer today than it was half-a-century ago or that we haven't managed any significant improvements in energy storage density or high energy ppwer generation in decades.

We're all still waiting for our flying cars.

At least the Star Trek vocal computer controls still beat Alexa...for now.

I think there's a massive difference between some old Egyptian dude being amazed at modern technology and being incapable of using or understanding it. At least using it for sure. Just like I'm sure I could give some Roman soldiers AK-47s and they'd be hitting bullseyes within the week. Humans are highly adaptable.

Quote from: Brad on May 07, 2021, 01:22:55 PM
I think there's a massive difference between some old Egyptian dude being amazed at modern technology and being incapable of using or understanding it. At least using it for sure. Just like I'm sure I could give some Roman soldiers AK-47s and they'd be hitting bullseyes within the week. Humans are highly adaptable.

And in the Battlfield Earth film, cavemen can operate Harriers.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 07, 2021, 01:32:28 PM
And in the Battlfield Earth film, cavemen can operate Harriers.

It's probably my favorite film. All its good or neat stuff is good, and all its bad stuff is HILARIOUS.

It tells almost a 3 stooges tale explaining how two chucklefucks drove their own alien species to extinction because their idiots.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 07, 2021, 03:14:32 PMAll its good or neat stuff is good

Uh what good stuff...

Quote from: Brad on May 07, 2021, 03:38:25 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 07, 2021, 03:14:32 PMAll its good or neat stuff is good

Uh what good stuff...

...as someone who considers the novel one of my all-time favorite 'fun' science fiction reads I have to reply that...

The only good thing about the BE movie was that it was so awful they weren't able to make the second one.

Quote from: Brad on May 07, 2021, 03:38:25 PMUh what good stuff...

Fun Sets, and good mat paintings mostly. I like novel things and a 'conquer the earth' plot from the perspective of the aliens is just a rare type of story.

I of course know it's all mostly terrible. But all its terribleness is great.