Official Statement to the TNC Convention 02016 by David Brin

transhumanity.net ^ | March 4, 2016 | David Brin

[Mellonkronos]

[This is from a famous scifi writer. He argues that rather than being scared of the danger of artificial intelligence in the future and trying to have government regulate it, more competition, not restricting competition, is best!]

Official Statement to the TNC Convention 02016 by David Brin

It is, of course, wise and beneficial to peer ahead for potential dangers and problems — one of the central tasks of high-end science fiction. Alas, detecting that a danger lurks is easier than prescribing solutions that can prevent it. Take the plausibility of malignant AI, remarked-upon recently by luminaries ranging from Stephen Hawking to Elon Musk. Indeed, my own novels contain some chilling warnings about failure modes with our new, cybernetic children.

It is one thing to yell at dangers. Alas, it is quite another when it comes to offering pragmatic fixes. There is a tendency to offer the same prescriptions, over and over again:

1) Renunciation: we must step back from innovation in AI (or other problematic tech). This might work in a despotism… indeed, 99%+ of human societies were highly conservative and skeptical of “innovation.” (Except when it came to weaponry.) Our own civilization is tempted by renunciation, especially at the more radical political wings. But it seems doubtful we’ll choose that path without be driven to it by some awful trauma.

2) Tight regulation. There are proposals to closely monitor bio, nano and cyber developments so that they – for example – only use a restricted range of raw materials that can be cut off, thus staunching any runaway reproduction. Again, it won’t happen short of trauma.

3) Fierce internal programming: limiting the number of times a nanomachine may reproduce, for example. Or imbuing robotic minds with Isaac Asimov’s famous “Three Laws of Robotics.” Good luck forcing companies and nations…

[Pilgrim's Progress]

What’s a transhuman? Is that kind of like a transsexual except it is E.T.? huh?

[tbw2]

Transhuman is the merging of human with machine or bioengineering to be more than human.

The goal of transhumanism is:
A. biological immortality via cloning/upgrade to android
OR
B. merging with the machine mind and being a computer program

They envision a singularity where the artificial intelligence(s) become all knowing, all seeing, all powerful - i.e., God.

And the trans-humanists worship it, assuming the artificial intelligence will be good for humanity, protective of it, tell us all what to do, and we should all have to obey it for the sake of humanity.

In short, it replaces God with technology, down to an omniscient and benevolent AI in place of a deity and digital heaven with your uploaded mind as an afterlife.

It gets even more tragic when these same people react to concerns by calling people backward Luddites, ignoring the fact that drones already used to kill people are more likely to lead to a Terminator scenario, though per someone’s orders.
Or that you’ll see an AI use the “quality of life years” equations to tell the old and undesirable to go home and die because its algorithm says you aren’t worth receiving medical care. And doctors relying or forced to defer to it won’t have a say when its says, “Nope, do nothing”, in essence sentenced to death to save money. God help us when an AI says the cost effective solution to a pandemic is to round up and kill the infected.

[Pilgrim's Progress]

GIGO

[tbw2]

What I find interesting is how these transhumanists adamantly deny there is a god, but gosh darn it, they’ll invent one AND heaven, too.