Ideas For My New Book

by SYN 5 Replies latest jw friends

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  SYN

  Hi all,

  Recently I had a great idea for a new book. Like so many of my recent book ideas, it deals with what will happen when we hit the Singularity. Of course, me saying that the Singularity will happen "real soon now" will strike a somewhat disturbing chord with many here , hell, I've even been known to use that phrase in a less-than-rosy fashion myself on occasion, but at least that "real soon now" is backed up by some REAL numbers. See KurzweilAI.net for some interesting discussion on the topic of the Singularity (the non-Flash version is slightly less boggling, and although it is a very pretty site, it is almost impossible to find stuff using the Flash version).

  My book will ask this basic question (albeit never out loud): When exactly will we hit the bottom of the Spike of Singularity, and how will it happen? Where is the bottom of this Spike?

  More importantly, has it already happened? What I mean by this is, do we already have ultra-intelligent machines? That are simply very well hidden? Or possibly something from a much earlier era of human civilization that's been hiding out? It's my intent to have the people in my story think they are building the first transcendant intelligence (i.e. something far, far smarter than a human), but then they get one hell of surprise when they realize they're not the first!

  A double whammy of sorts, then.

  You could almost say the Singularity is the closest thing I have to a religion, but for me it's not about FAITH, it's just about looking at the numbers and watching with interest. There is no Church of the Singularity, no Mosque, no Synagogue. The Spike is the part of Singularity where exponential growth becomes, for all practical purposes, instantaneous. Ray Kurzweil thinks we are only a couple of decades away from that Spike portion of the graph. Not even Yours Truly knows whether Singularity will be terrible or wonderful, either. My book will reflect this stance. It might be neither. Maybe the transcendant AI won't even notice us! Do you notice and pay much attention to the activities of the ants living in your garden?

  Didn't think so. Apart from when they invade your kitchen, that is. Then you take out the bug spray and go crazy. Which is a very disturbing thought, but an important point IMHO. Of course, the ants/people analogy is broken, as ants have no recognizable intelligence of the sort we're familiar with as humans, but it illustrates the grosser points of my argument about transcendant AI simply ignoring us until we annoy it.

  Then again, I don't generally whack insects with bug spray, I'll grab them on a sheet of paper and toss them out of the window. That's just my nature

  Like I said, it could be either wonderful or terrible, or a daibolic combination. Only time will tell, but my book attempts to pull a Nostradamus (minus the poetry) and predict what will happen. So does anyone have any overriding criticism to deliver before I start writing the lion's share of the book? There's already a plot outline, I just have to create some characters now to carry the story through...

  Regards,
  [SYN]
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  Holey_Cheeses*King_of_the juice.

  I know how lonely it can be (and sometimes a little discouraging) not to receive any replies to a post.

  So. You will always find that many and varied pictures of nude women (and throw a couple of men in for the females) will increase the potential for any book to be read. Well, always makes it more interesting for me anyway.

  cheeeses (who only reads Playboy for the thought provoking articles)
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  NeonMadman

  Dunno, SYN...it's an interesting concept. But assuming that computers could be made that would exceed human intelligence (as defined in terms of memory storage and computational ability), that doesn't necessarily imply that they would become sentient. An automobile is physically more powerful than a human, but the human is still in control of it, and I think it most likely that that would be the case with more powerful computers.

  From a science-fictional perspective, however, the concept does provide a lot of potential, some of which has been explored previously. This Perfect Day, by Ira Levin comes to mind as a good early example of an Orwellian-style novel in which humans had to take the world back from the computers that controlled it.

  And while I'm in science-fictional mode...

  More importantly, has it already happened? What I mean by this is, do we already have ultra-intelligent machines? That are simply very well hidden? Or possibly something from a much earlier era of human civilization that's been hiding out?

  ...perhaps they are us?
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  JamesThomas

  Sounds like it could be a fun read, SYN. I love sci-fi. You must get quite a pile of paper outside you window when you have an ant infestation. JamesT
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  Francois

  There is also the classic "Forbin Project" in which a supercomputer in the US intuits a like machine in the Soviet Union. The two machines establish contact and perform a core dump to each other. Then the unified machines control human activity by firing off thermonuclear devices when they are not obeyed. They are given a voice module, which announces its desire to make a pronouncement with the opening announcement, "This is the voice of World Control..."

  Scary.

  francois
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  SYN

  Thanks for your replies guys, Cheese dude in particular

  Dunno, SYN...it's an interesting concept. But assuming that computers could be made that would exceed human intelligence (as defined in terms of memory storage and computational ability), that doesn't necessarily imply that they would become sentient. An automobile is physically more powerful than a human, but the human is still in control of it, and I think it most likely that that would be the case with more powerful computers.

  NeonMadman, it's all in the simulation. My story will feature a hybrid software/organic construct - the organic part will do the consciousness bit, whilst the electronic/software part will provide very advanced logical faculties, as well as a virtual environment for the AI to live in and grow in. In my story the environment will be an important part of the machine's learning cycle, providing a place where it can be "grown" and interact with it's human keepers, but eventually reach pinnacles of intelligence that will leave the humans far behind. Of course I'm aware of the fact that we still don't really know the underpinnings of that curious consensual hallucination called "consciousness", but the scientists in my story have discovered how to reproduce it using a blend of emergent behaviour and clever virtual evolution algorithms (research on which is commonplace today). This Perfect Day was an interesting book!

  LOL @ JamesThomas You will not believe the kinds of ants we get in South Africa. Truly horrendous at times.

  Yeah, Francois, like I said in my original post, it will be either terrible or wonderful. Have you read that story by Philip K. Dick where they create a trans-human intelligence in a computer that warns them to beware of bubblegum being sold in a certain Californian store, and they laugh at it and switch it off, and then a week later the world is taken over by bubblegum? That story perfectly illustrates another problem we might have with a trans-human AI: recognizing whether it is, indeed, intelligent/conscious or not. The Turing Test may not be enough.