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Comments on NeuroSky ThinkGear Mind-Controlled Toys With Sega
Finally, mind-controlled devices will be available to our children. What could possibly go wrong? (Read
the complete story)
| "Ah, this is entirely cool....
Tell me Bill, do you believe in Kurzweil's time scale for the Singularity?" (ancible 12/13/2007 9:27:10 PM) |
| "I may well still be alive by 2045, so it's worth thinking about (for me!). I find myself wondering if it's actually possible for a machine intelligence to be capable of original, directed research into areas that will endanger humanity.
I love the shiny science tech, but sometimes I wonder if the 'mud hut' future isn't more likely. That's the one in which we find it difficult just to feed ourselves, and have heat and light for our houses. If you look into it, you'll find that all of our amazing accomplishments of the last 150 years are really based on oil and natural gas. This incredible energy "endowment" or "inheritance" is what has made us feel like we are superhuman, independent of the natural cycles of life. (Did you know that a gallon of gas contains roughly the same amount of energy as 500 hours of normal human mechanical work? Every time you put 12 gallons of gas in your car, you are purchasing three years of human effort, just to push your heavy car down the road for a few hundred miles.) We're at peak oil now; peak natural gas is coming in about 15 years, according to petroleum geologists. Let's get past our dependence on gas and oil, and then I'll start worrying more about superintelligent machines that have no further use for me. How about you (or others)? Do you think that technological growth will hit infinity sometime around the middle of this century?" (Bill Christensen 12/14/2007 7:18:58 PM) |
| "I must admit I am an optimist, but Kurzweil makes some great points (and graphs!). I read physorg.com alot and must say the fundamental breakthroughs are coming at an incredible pace. It also seems likely that the very abundance of fossil fuels has hidden our resourcefulness in this area. Surely the large amounts of investment capital that will be made available for energy research after peak oil will drive progress even faster.
But maybe I should invest in mud companies just to be safe... " (ancible 12/16/2007 4:12:08 AM) |
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