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MugaSofer comments on By Which It May Be Judged - Less Wrong
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He's talking about something other than SAI. Probably aliens.
Well, there were some aliens involved.
First off, w.r.t. my saying somebody's got to try to ward off the worst possibilities of the AI "singularity", that is to give due respect to what (correct me if I'm wrong) seems to be the primary purpose of the SI, and Eliezer_Yudkowsky's avowed life purpose (based on bloggingheads conversations ca 2009-10).
The Childhood's End analogy was pretty off the cuff, and a "really bad variation" of it may or may not be, on reflection, a good analogue for any danger to present society, but here's the jist of the book, which imho is probably the most interesting think Clark ever wrote (though I'm not well read in Clarkeana, and hardly even a sci-fi fan since I was 16/17 around 44 years ago). Anyway, here goes:
[Spoiler alert] It is the future (ha ha), and children and young folks are beginning to act peculiarly, to speak in private languages, and indeed to understand eachother in an alarmingly rapid way (that is, old folks are blown away by it). This is the conclusion you get maybe halfway through the book.
At some point, aliens appear who call themselves "midwives", who facilitate a process by which everyone who's not too young and unmalleable merges somehow into one big mind. The aliens admit that for some reason their species just can't manage it at all, and so they can only roam the universe looking for planets containing intelligent life forms on the verge of such a transition, and ease the birthing pains. These are genuinely well meaning aliens, not like the ones who carry the book To Serve Mankind (It's a cookbook!).
Is it too silly to say the present world has some resemblance to the early part of the book? But I don't think the alien cavalry will show up, and there's no way in hell we're tending towards one great supermind, but we might at least somewhat resemble several semi-superminds communicating at the speed of light, each with its own separate reality, and each paranoid (more of less justifiably, unless vicious circle can be broken) and in some cases violently inclined towards the other.
... oh. You're worried the internet will eat you?
What, did you only read the word "cookbook"? That was quite tangential.
If that didn't refer to the 'net, what did it refer to?
(I have encountered this idea elsewhere, so I may have pattern-matched.)
Who said it doesn't refer to the net? Of course it does. The Internet is inevitable, and in many ways great, but also presents problems that we pay some attention to, much as subatomic physics, and its corollary atomic energy do. It is reasonably arguable (whether true or not) that Nazism would never have happened without the radio, or that the USSR's police state required the telephone and other high speed means of communication.
While thinking about how great these things are, I think we'd be wise to do some thought experiments on what possibly catastrophic and unforeseen consequences that might facilitate. Not in order to outlaw them, but to be not totally clueless at spotting them in case they do manifest.
(And pure thought is somewhat overrated. The extent our armed forces remain competent depends largely on war games. But there was a big blind spot if we didn't have a very active terrorist "red team" trying to cook up whatever possibilities the current environment presents (i.e. box knives, and open enrollment classes in flying 747s)
USSR's police state required high speed one-to-many means of communication. The Soviet leadership was absolutely terrified of many-to-many means of communication, going so far as to impose extremely tight controls on access to photocopiers, even most high level members of the party couldn't get access.
Well, in fairness, photocopiers are commonly used for making posters, flyers and so on, especially back then.
It't not that it was irrational
That would seem to imply that it was an overreaction, demonstrating the depths of their paranoia, or at least that's how I interpreted it.
It is? I can't say I've ever heard that before. Could you elaborate?
... you did? I thought?
For clarity: are you or are you not worried that the internet will evolve into a superintelligence(s), taking us with it?
As it was a casual remark in passing, I don't plan to debate, and "reasonably arguable" is a fairly low bar. But, Hitler had a mesmerizing speaking presence, at least for the people he connected with. He probably would never have amounted to anything except somebody in the German establishment, wanting to quell the chaos that followed the end of WWI, hired him to lecture groups of soldiers to reign them in, and he "discovered he had a voice". Once he became chancellor, it took 3-4 years to go from fairly chaotic thuggery against jews and, over time, whoever would not return the Hitler salute, to even get to Kristalnacht, and in that time he perfected the art of haranguing all Germans at one time. If you didn't have your radio tuned in to his speeches, your neighbour might report your unpatriotic behaviour.
It seems like one of the least of our worries. As a medium, I think it's one factor in many in laying the ground for people getting more and more into separate and hostile mental universes, such that a high percentage of people can believe that Obama is a Muslim and a Marxist (at the same time), and that global warming is a hoax which is part of an international conspiracy to turn the world into one socialist state. It used to be rare to find someone who thought the moon landings were faked, but now I think certainly 15-30% of Americans have delusions of that magnitude.
Oh, I wasn't disputing, just asking for more information.
Oh, I see. I latched on to the wrong part of your summary
...well, I can see your point, certainly. I'm not sure if you're factoring in the increased ease of encountering opposing viewpoints, but I suspect you are :/