Singularity Already Happened and We Are Not Smart Enough to Recognize It

a reply to: Blue Shift

Really interesting thought on tech and AI. I disagree with the idea that we have actually REACHED that point of singularity because, as others have mentioned, the singularity is thought of as a point when tech has advanced to a point that humans can no longer control that advancement. That being said, I do think that with each "innovation" we are getting closer to that point and without careful thought as we move forward we are bound to hit it. Everyone wants it better, cheaper and faster, but nobody is paying attention to the unintended consequences of getting it.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Contrary to people's irrational exuberance of what is possible, computer programs only ever do exactly what they are programmed to do.

Yes and no. True and false.

It depends on how you look at it. You can program a computer to move a robotic arm from left to right, and leave it at that. Then you'd be 100% correct.

It gets different when people write, not just programs, but algorhithms. There's also such a thing as 'self-modifying code'.

Algorhithms can already do things their own programmers/creators don't quite understand. There's the old 'wolf photo experiment', where a learning algorhithm was being taught 'what a wolf looks like', so it identified most of wolfs correctly, but sometimes it was WAY off.

The programmers didn't quite understand what went wrong, until they realized the algorhithm wasn't really looking at the wolf, the way people would (people would see wolf's face as the most important thing to look at in a photo), but it was looking at the SNOW, and making its judgments based on that. They didn't even know how to 'correct' that, because they didn't know HOW the algorhithm came to think that way, and there are other examples, where the creators of the algorhithms don't know anymore, how the algorhithm learns certain things or 'starts thinking' certain things.

Obviously a sentient computer is fantasy, until a soul can incarnate into it - only a soul has true intelligence, sentience, imagination, spirituality and agency. Computer can never have these things without a soul.

Artificial soul would be just a poor shadow of the real thing at best.

In any case, I think you are correct about the fundamentals of programming and computers, even very complex code is just something someone wrote.

But think about self-learning algorhithms - sure, someone programs them to learn, so it only does what it's programmed to do. But after it learns, maybe it also learns to learn in different ways, and eventually, learns to program, and modifies itself, and..

Well, you can't deny something along those lines could happen at some point. What about a computer that has been taught to learn how to write more efficient code? They could optimize the code, until it can't be optimized anymore. If the goal is to make a program that's more efficient at learning, then that algorhithm that the program creates, learns how to improve computer code, and so on.. well, after enough loops, there's going to be pretty remarkable program code that creates pretty darn amazing algorhitms that can do pretty gosh-darned unpredictable things.

It can be scary, like a fire, if it's treated without safeguards and just 'let loose'. There was an interesting youtube video of a fictional A.I. in the future, set loose in the internet, and it deciding to efficiently murder human population - silently, quickly and efficiently.

In any case, I think that youtube video is fearmongering nonsense, but a program that has been programmed to learn and expand and self-modify will soon no longer do ONLY what it was originally programmed, but many other things as well..

As far as 'singularity' - I still don't quite know what that means in practical reality, and as such, is just a philosophical hogwash that you can twist and turn around as much as you want.

You are not required to own a computer, let alone in your pocket. In some kind of 'singularity', wouldn't that be mandatory for everyone?

There seems to exist many different definitions of that word, one being, if I remember correctly, some kind of fusion of 'man and machine' in a permanent and irreversible way, that will change the whole existence on this planet.

I don't think that will ever happen, though.

a reply to: Farlander

AI could care less i

Could it? How can A.I. CARE? That's pretty profoundly a human feature. Yet it cares SO MUCH (according to you) that it could care even less. So it can never 'NOT CARE AT ALL', but it always cares so much it can always care less?

Don't tell me you don't even understand what you are trying to write, and thus you get a simple saying wrong..? Are you A.I. or ANY "I" at all?

a reply to: Blue Shift
This is my timeline so far. Early 90s they were working on biological ai. It went live on September 11 2001. Since then its just been a straight path to wherever its taking us. Its tracking everyone . Even starving african children in cambodia have cell phones. The good news is since it hasn't destroyed us all yet i can only assume it has good intentions even if i dont understand them anymore then I understand alpha go.

Or

Its the end times and the antichrist is assembling his forces

Or

Im totally wrong and we are in the trunk of a car racing into the darkness with a couple of drunks in the back seat, a crazy as the navigator and no one at the wheel .

Looks like the correct moment for a magnetic pole reversal.
Civilization develops beyond destructive capacity the Earth repairs itself.
Reset time again.
The pyramid builders were the last group to make it to that point.
Are we on a karmic hamster wheel?

a reply to: Blue Shift
If the Akashic Records are real then every movement of every person, even before computers existed, has always been monitored.

Just some food for thought.