No Singularity
07/14/2011 20:40
Linden’s big argument with Ray Kurzweil, though, is that Ray applies Moore’s Law not only to science and technology, but to the insights they produce. Linden concedes that the data sets may be increasing at an exponential rate, but he insists that our understanding of the brain and consciousness is “stubbornly linear.” This is also the case in other fields with exploding data sets, Linden says. How many real “aha” moments have come from the genome project so far? Well okay, one big one: that Europeans are 4% neanderthal.
My quibble with Ray is slightly different. I’m always surprised that no one ever seems concerned about the distributive justice question when we get to talking about mind uploads. I'm pretty sure that means that only rich white guys with connections to silicon valley VCs need apply, right?
But actually, I've always suspected that if Ray ever did manage to upload his consciousness to the cloud, it would only take him about a nanosecond to become Skynet from the Terminator movies. Just a thought...
