WEBVTT - The Great Transhumanist Rapture War: Part 2 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.160 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:16.360 dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:18.880 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick and 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.840 Robert and I. Last time, we're talking about the rapture 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:28.520 about Christian eschatology, religious eschatology in general, and secular eschatology 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.760 of a technological nature such as the singularity trans humanism. 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.519 And our discussion went so long that we decided to 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.519 divide it up into two parts. So here is the 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:44.519 second part of our conversation on the end times. Okay, well, 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:49.240 I've got another uh futurist, sort of techno futurist mindset 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.519 that I think we can ask. Is this a religion? 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:53.840 Is it like a religion or does it just sort 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.840 of like uh tickle some of the same weak spots 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.240 We've got as many religions too. So I want to 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.600 talk about the singularity. Robert, do you feel good about 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:06.679 the Singularity? You feel bad about it? You think it's 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:09.080 a bunch of whoy? I feel good about it? U. 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.240 I mean part of that I think comes from just 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.959 being I'm a fan of like the E and M 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:18.080 Banks culture series model of of a post singularity post 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.720 scarcity world in which the super intelligent computers have our 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:24.720 best interests at heart. They kind of look after us 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:30.199 as kind of benevolent, semi noble gods. Yeah, okay, okay, Well, 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.640 so I think we need to explore this idea because this, 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.080 to me is is the core of this kind of 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:39.240 topic we're talking about today, like technological eschatology. So you 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.560 could say that the singularity, I think has come to 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.160 have almost as many interpretations as the Christian escuoton, right, Like, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:47.800 just like the Christian eschatology is, they're all sort of 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.760 loosely related and grounded in similar beliefs, but they vary 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.080 in the explicit details or in the way you'd explain them, 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:59.840 even if they're not necessarily contradictory. So, in the most basics, 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:05.240 and the singularity is a hypothesis that technological innovation, at 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.360 some point in the future is going to reach a 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:12.800 tipping point of unimaginable innovation that fundamentally changes the fate 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.560 of humanity on a rapid time scale. Very often it 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:21.120 involves artificial intelligence. So I'm gonna talk about three basic 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.080 models just to give you an idea. One one is 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.120 the super intelligence model, and this is the idea that 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:31.160 humans are going to create superhuman artificial intelligence. So when 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.280 you think about it, intelligence, I would probably agree has 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.960 been the most rapid driver of change in the universe 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:42.000 up until this point. Like in cosmological or geological history. 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.600 What difference does ten thousand years usually make to anything? 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.320 You know, not a lot, hardly any, But you think 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.919 about how much Earth has changed in the past ten 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:56.080 thousand years due to intelligence. Once, once we reach the 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.480 creation of machines with functional intelligence exceeding that of any human, 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.840 assuming that actually does happen, proponents argue that this superhuman 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.640 artificial intelligence is just going to rapidly transform our environment. 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.040 The conditions of our lives, and the capabilities of human 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:16.720 civilization will be fundamentally transformed on a very huge scale. 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.160 And they say, so the age of super intelligence is dawning, 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.840 and this is the singularity. Another way of looking at 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.680 it is also based on artificial intelligence, but it's known 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.360 as the intelligence explosion, and this is based on the 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:35.840 idea of self improving intelligence paradigms that surpass our ability 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.240 to understand or control them. So let's say, Robert, you 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.760 build a superhuman artificial intelligence. What's the first thing you 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.520 have it do um, co author my paper about the 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:51.320 creation superhero human AI intelligence. Oh yeah, well that's that's 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.360 a smart move. But do some talk shows to promote 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:59.040 it and my book about the creation? Yeah? I guess yeah, 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:00.720 it's hard to think past that. Come up with the 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.120 tastiest breakfast cereal ever created. No. I mean what a 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:06.120 lot of people say is, well, you know, the best 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.000 bang for your buck as soon as you create a 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.800 superhuman artificial intelligence is that it would be best put 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.320 to use designing ways to rapidly make itself more intelligent, 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.560 which theoretically it should be able to do. So. If 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.960 it can do this, it will experience exponential self improvement 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.640 and not only will our technological intelligence grow, and not 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.599 only will it accelerate, but it's acceleration will accelerate. I 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:33.839 feel like the people saying that that's the best use 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:38.720 of super intelligence UM have not seen any science fiction film, 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:40.720 because it seems like the thing to do is all right. 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.240 It's it's reached the point to where it's smart enough 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:46.000 that I can take it to Vegas and and just 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.680 totally kill But it's not so smart that it will 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:54.440 literally kill me or or Sky at the entire country. Well, 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.159 I don't know. I mean, I think the argument would 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:58.400 go that, well, even if you don't do that, somebody's 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.719 gonna somebody's gonna say, well, I want to have a 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.120 smarter AI than your AI, so I'm gonna have my 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:08.200 AI improve itself that I don't know. You take your 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.680 AI to a poker game, and somebody else has been 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.800 having their AI self improve its own intelligence, and it's 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:19.080 telling that person out this metaphors out of hand. But 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:20.960 but you want to be the person with the smartest day. 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.320 I right, Well, but it's kind of like you're you're 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.280 reaching a point where you can create your own demons, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:30.159 create your own deities, and in doing so, it seems 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.000 like you you need to know where to stop, like like, 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.520 maybe not make a full blown god, that make a 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:38.960 demi god, and let me make an artificial demigod, because 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.760 then then at least it has limits. Right, Yeah, you 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.640 want a Hercules not a Zeus. Yeah, I far rather 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.520 deal with a her renegade or Hercules this in a 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.800 situation as opposed to a renegades Zeus, which of course 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:52.480 is I mean, that's pretty much how both of those 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.960 guys rolled what they wanted Okay. One more idea of 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.000 the singularity, and this is a I think a simpler version, 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.240 but it just is that at some point technological process 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.279 again usually the emphasis is on artificial intelligence, but you 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.440 could put the emphasis elsewhere. At some point it begins 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.359 to accelerate so quickly that our power to predict the 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:15.479 outcome becomes basically zero. Events will become so strange and 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.200 unpredictable that we we just can't even imagine them from 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.919 our present vantage point. So an outside context indent, yeah, sure, 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.760 outside context problem caused by technological innovation. Yeah. So a 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.880 lot of modern singularity thinking can be traced, and there 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:32.920 are plenty people who have written about this over the years, 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.400 but I'd say the biggest figure in the singularity today 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.839 is Ray Kerswile. He's the technologist and author. Rakers while 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.760 very smart guy, worked on technology for years. He's made 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.000 a lot of very accurate and interesting predictions that have 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.760 that have proved correct over the years. But he's also 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.120 made a lot of predictions about the future that a 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.279 lot of people now think are I don't know, maybe 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.960 he's being overly optimistic, but anyway, Kerswill has argued in 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:04.839 several books that the Singularity, This artificial intelligence revolution that's 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.920 going to fundamentally change humanity is coming, and it's coming soon. 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.560 In his two thousand five books, the Singularity is near, 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:16.720 Cursewell predicted it would happen in so, Robert, you've got 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:23.560 any plans for um? I think my son will be 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:25.640 out of high school at that point. I think he's 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:33.400 he's uh graduating high school theoretically in so Okay, So 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:35.000 I guess, I'm so. I don't know. Well, we have 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.120 a job by the time the Singularity happened. I don't know. Yeah, 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.920 it's it's crazy to think about that, Like what do 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:43.000 you what do you? What do you do post high 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.720 school if the Singularity is coming in just a few years, 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.040 Like do you go to college? Hey? With with the 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.720 singularity in mind bingo, that is a very good question. 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.680 So so let's back up. Let's just assume for a 0:07:55.720 --> 0:08:00.520 moment a Singularity type scaton is coming. That might be 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.440 a big assumption, but let's assume something like that will happen. 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:06.840 Is it good or bad? Will we get the AI 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:12.080 my Trea or the AI Ragnarok? Who well, obviously I 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:14.840 want my Traya as opposed to Ragnarock. Yeah, I mean, 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.480 so the my Trea version, what would it be? You know, 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:22.160 war cease, all diseases, including aging itself or eradicated. There's 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.840 general abundance of resources and wealth. Everybody gets what they want. 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.960 Humans live indefinitely in a state of harmony, exploration, and bliss. 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:33.440 If I feel like the model we get in most 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.000 sci fi scenarios is that you think you're gonna get 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.479 my Treia, but then you're actually on the road to Ragnarok, 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:41.520 and then you end up just kind of burning everything 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.480 down and going back to whatever nest up system you 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:46.960 had before. Right, So why do people think that we're 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.560 on the road to Ragnarok? Well, you mentioned earlier, you know, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.280 the machine, a machine smart enough to to do all 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.320 this great stuff for you, is also smart enough to 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:57.200 figure out how to kill you if it wants to. 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.240 So why might it want to? Well, super intelligent machines, 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:06.199 people say, well, either intentionally choose to eliminate humanity for 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.000 some reason, though I admit I've never heard this explain 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:11.640 in a way that made a lot of sense to me, 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.120 Like why they would intentionally choose to hunt us down 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.960 and eradicate us. So maybe somebody could explain that to me, Um, 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.320 but the judge of the living and the dead, it 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.760 could be. But but the other version is that perhaps 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.960 merely by a flow of design, they tend to damage 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:33.319 or destroy humanity as a byproduct of executing their primary function, 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.960 and that that vision seems more plausible to me. But so, 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.760 here's one common example of how something like this would go. 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.800 You've got a super intelligent computer program that's smarter than 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.280 any human. It can improve its own intelligence, is just 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:50.000 crazy smart, and it's designed to maximize efficiency along the 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.360 production line of a factory that makes toilet paper. So 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:57.400 somebody forgets to add some conditionals, and the computer program 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.600 ends up turning all the atoms on the surface of 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.720 the earth, including the ones in your body, into toilet paper. 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:07.120 It has done its job. Well, that sounds kind of crazy, 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.080 but some tam or version of that nightmare seems more 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:14.760 plausible to me than the intentional terminator style eradication of humans. 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.880 I don't know what do you think about that, Robert Um? Yeah, 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.520 I think I tend to interpret the sort of sky 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.960 Net models the sort of like all humans are flawed. 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.760 That's thus all humans must be eradicated. Thing to be 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:33.760 more of a uh more more rejecting insecurities. Well that 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.640 and also just a bedtime story to say, like make 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.160 sure you program and that failsafe, you know. And I 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.160 feel like, obviously we would have that failsafe, and if 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:47.839 it were a super intelligent machine, it would have. Yeah. 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.640 I just have a hard time buying into that model 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.280 of a super advanced system that it would be so 0:10:55.080 --> 0:11:01.880 catastrophically myopic. Yeah. I mean, both visions have their advocates 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.160 right there. There are smart people on both sides. But 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:07.839 the funny thing is all this is assuming that something 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.760 like the Singularity will actually happen one way or another, 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.080 and not everyone agrees that it will. But there are 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.679 also people who have been critical of the idea of 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.880 the singularity, and some people who have characterized it as 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:24.760 a religious idea inherently. One of them is the technologist 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:29.720 and virtual reality pioneer Jerone Lanier, and he's got a 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.559 lot of opinions about the Singularity. He's made this case 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.320 in in in books, said that it's not only religious 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.280 in nature, but potentially a dangerous or harmful religion. So 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.880 I read an article that he wrote and published in 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.240 The New York Times in two thousand ten called the 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.360 first Church of robotics, and I thought this was interesting. 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.760 So Laniard points out that every news report of an 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.960 advance in artificial intelligence gives us the impression that the 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.600 field is making steady progress to overtake human intelligence in 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.120 cape of alities, and I sort of agree with him. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.160 I get that feeling when you see these little news 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.800 stories like there's there's a new artificial intelligence program that 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.920 can smell flatulence, There's a new artificial intelligence program that 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.680 can tell a joke. You know, all these like weird 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.719 little quirks of humanity, and they seem to add up 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.880 to something over time. Okay, so it can smell farts, 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.240 that can make jokes about farts, because it's it's about 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:29.640 the corner with the standard it has become Adam Sandler, Yeah, 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.240 it has surpassed its humanity. But yeah, so there's nothing 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.480 wrong with individual AI projects, Landier says, In fact, he 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.440 has worked on them himself. But he makes a couple 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.840 of points. He says individual advances in artificial intelligence research 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.520 can be interpreted more usefully without the overall framework of AI, 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:53.160 meaning without the idea that computers are becoming synthetic versions 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.600 of human intelligence. And the example he gives his you know, 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:00.120 the IBM computer winning on Jeopardy, Watson going on, are 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.280 beating people on Jeopardy. So he he says, that's a 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:07.400 theatrical stunt that over sells a fake aspect of what 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.959 this computer program can do, you know, conversational human knowledge, 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:15.600 which it doesn't really have, and undersells a real aspect 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.640 of its capabilities that it's a very powerful phrase based 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:23.760 search engine. And then he also says that AI, uh, 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.959 that the AI that in some way passes for human 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.199 requires humans to do all the work. Like when you've 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.400 got a social robot, you know, going around saying like Hi, 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.120 I'm your friendly social robot. Look at how advanced my 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:40.400 artificial intelligence is. His point is that humans, being social, 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:42.640 will work with what they get. And if you're having 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.599 a transaction with a robot that you are told is 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.760 social and nature, you can very easily adapt your social 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.679 behaviors to the extreme limitations of this machine, and they 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.760 do tend to be pretty extreme. You're not gonna mistake 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.720 at a machine for a human. Yeah, I mean, as 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.280 we've discussed on a show before, or I mean humans 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.400 can have we can have conversations with with a with 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.520 a doll with a with a smiley face. It's scrawled 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.000 on the wall and in putting. So, uh, it's not 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:12.760 that much of a step to say that, yes, we 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.199 can have a conversation with a chat bot. We can, 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:17.760 we can have a conversation with the search engine, and 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.000 of course we can certainly have a conversation with an 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.480 echo borg. How often, though, do you meet a person 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:27.320 who really loves fruit trees? That's true, I love fruit trees. 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.080 I hate fruit trees. But how can you hate fruit 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.160 trees because I'm not a robotlet what would you do 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.000 if you found a turtle? The turtles on his back? 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.160 Why aren't you turning him over? Joe? But what what? 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:40.240 What I'll tell you about my mother? Okay? Sorry? So 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.360 but anyway, A layer goes on to say, quote, what 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:45.520 bothers me about this trend? And he's talking about this 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:50.440 AI media trend. However, is that by allowing artificial intelligence 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.880 to reshape our concept of personhood, we're leaving ourselves opened 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.080 to the flip side. We think of people more and 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.760 more as computers, just as we think of computers as people. 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:04.880 And I think there might be something to that, actually, 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.080 that the idea of AI not only sort of lifts 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:12.560 computers up, but in a certain way, at least emotionally 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:18.040 kind of lowers humans down. Yeah. And we we've discussed this, 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.840 I feel recently on the show too, about how just 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:26.240 even though we we have this increasingly pervasive model of 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:30.120 our own cognitive performance as being essentially a program, we 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:34.080 think about processing things, we think about visual input of data, 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.640 we think about crunching the numbers, uh, and various other 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.600 models we use technology to inform our understanding of how 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.600 our brains are working. And those are just those are 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.800 just metaphors really, and but the underlying processes are not 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.880 really comparable to the computers that we have today. It 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.080 would be we could maybe compare them to an advanced 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:57.720 computer will have in the in the future, some sort 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:03.960 of maybe um, you know, um advanced machine maybe. Yeah. Yeah, 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.440 I think that's true. Uh, They're they're very much metaphors. 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.360 And I'm not saying that they're not useful metaphors, but 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:12.480 I do think I want to take what Lanni you 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.800 are saying seriously here, because I think he has a point. Anyway, 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.480 he goes on when he's going to get to the singularity, 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:22.000 so he says, you know, engineers are humans with human desires, 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.160 even though they may be advocating this sort of like 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:30.440 dehumanized technological ideology or view of intelligence in personhood in 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.920 the world. And they've got the same desires that lead 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.200 us to create and follow religions. So this sort of 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.640 leads them to wrap their technological ideologies up into parallels 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.360 of religious thinking. And he and according to Lannier, he 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:48.320 thinks the concept of the singularity is a religion expressed 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:53.080 through engineering culture. And he points out if this religion entails, 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:58.320 you know, essentially scatological beliefs that imply that most people, basically, 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.240 I would say, anybody not working in information theory, artificial intelligence, 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.000 or robotics, if pretty much anybody outside those fields can 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:10.359 basically just sit and wait for imminent salvation or destruction 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:16.040 via the machines. And if inadvertent devaluation of persons by 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:20.640 overstating analogies between persons and computers takes place, it can 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:26.199 certainly exacerbate tensions between traditional religions and modernity, and it 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:31.640 can be a destructive and demoralizing force in itself. So anyway, 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.479 he ends by saying technology best serves humanity when we 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:38.240 resist the urge to turn it into a religious ideology. Yeah, 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.359 because otherwise you end up in a situation where you're like, 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.200 I could, I could exercise and eat right, but singularities 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.000 come in. Singularities gonna work that out, or you might think, 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.760 I'm not even gonna bother to write the Great American novel, 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:54.800 because Great American Novel bought thirty seven oh five. It's 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:56.720 going to write the Great American novel. It's gonna write 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:01.040 one a day, one every hour. I could work hard 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.840 to achieve peace in world civilization, but maybe the Ai'll 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.560 sort it all out for this or just kill us all. 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.600 I mean, either one. It's sort of a demoralizing, de 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:16.639 motivating belief, which of course has obvious parallels with you know, 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:21.840 more apocalyptic near future religious movements that said the end 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.399 time is coming, So what does it matter? Give me 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:28.520 your money now? Certainly? Yeah, what whether it's a secular 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:32.040 or you know, supernatural or not supernatural in nature, If 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.280 you've got beliefs about a powerful force that comes in 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.480 and intervenes and makes all of our actions obsolete, either 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.520 either way it comes from that seems like it can 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.400 have a de motivating force on the way you live. 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.199 Your life. But I want to say one more thing 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.760 Linear says about the Singularity that I think is interesting. 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.320 Uh So, I listened to a podcast that was an 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.880 interview with Linear and and he says, quote, the difference 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.560 between a religious fanatic and a religious non fanatic is 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:04.800 in certainty of the imminent timing of whatever their escaton is, 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.680 you know, whatever their end of days is. It's when 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:11.120 you believe that you know when it's happening and it's 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.040 soon that you really turn into a nutcase and you 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:16.720 do harm to yourself and others. In my mind, the 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.560 Singularity movement is sort of doing that. And I think 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:22.000 I see what he's saying there, because he sort of 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.359 qualifies saying that if you mean, in the very long 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.439 term view, humanity will make some phase transition, and it 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:33.359 has something to do with information technology that's not necessarily 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.720 crazy or harmful. You know, you might say, who knows, 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.640 over the next few thousands of years, some somehow humanity 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:44.040 might change itself, uh, due to computers and the Internet 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.199 and stuff like that. But the notion that it's going 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.399 to happen in twenty years or something is destructive and 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:53.240 a sign of fanaticism. According to him, and I think 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.000 that that idea makes sense to me too. Well, in 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.199 large part, you could say, you're you're setting yourself up 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.520 for disappointment, You're setting yourself up to fail right, that 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.959 you're going to reach that point when the second Coming 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:08.000 is going to happen, when the Singularity is going to happen, 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.639 and then it doesn't happen, and then how do you 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:13.960 feel about the world. Then how do you approach the 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.159 near and long term future? Well, I think that is 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:18.280 definitely something we should talk about in just a moment, 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:20.199 But I want to finish up on the Singularity with 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.560 one or two more things. First of all, I want 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:24.800 to go back and defend against that by saying, there 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:26.800 are also people who say, you know, look, if we're 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.960 worried about the Ai Ragnarok uh saying the Ai is 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.640 gonna come in and destroy us, all we do need 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:34.960 to be thinking about it now, even if it's not 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.439 gonna happen soon. Just the possibility that it might happen 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:42.440 soon means that we need to be preparing immediately. I 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:45.359 can see the wisdom in that too. I mean, I 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.720 don't know, it's uh. At the risk of sounding fascil, 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.120 I I see both sides, Yeah, well, I mean, certainly, 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.640 h if the iceberg is out there, we want to 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.760 know how not to run the ship into it. But 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:01.800 then again, but what if iceberg is a superhuman robot 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.000 that you don't even know whether it could possibly exist 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.000 or not. Well, that's the kind of thinking that enables 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:12.399 humanity time and time again to not actually, you know, 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.760 deal with the problems they're facing them, to just say, ah, 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:18.479 it might not even be real. So I don't know, 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:23.320 the jury is still out on the science there. So 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.200 I want to offer one more thing, the impossible defense 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.600 of singularity thinking. I found a short video on YouTube 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.399 where somebody in a crowd asks Ray Kurzweil himself, the 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.960 guy who said it's going to happen if the Singularity 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:41.680 is a religion and curs while responds that. He says, essentially, 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.200 it does provide some of the same things that religion 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.639 traditionally provided, like a means to forestall death. That's worth 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:51.879 pointing out. But it's also not a religion inherently because 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:55.360 it's based on scientific and technological prediction. And he said, 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:59.199 quote it doesn't start from rapture. He also says, quote 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:01.960 religion and or just in pre scientific times. To call 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:04.960 it a religion is to say that it's pre scientific 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:09.640 or unscientific. And I think, you know, maybe or maybe not, 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.320 Like I definitely do sense that some people who call 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:15.760 the singularity of religion, because Landing is not the only 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:17.840 one who said this, this is a thing people say 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.840 in criticism of it. I think some people are merely 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:25.160 being pejorative. You've noticed that if you ever heard anybody 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:29.640 call something that's not a religion a religion, it's an insult. 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.000 And that interesting, like, uh, that political candidate you agree 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:37.879 with Greg Stillson Man, you all you Greg Stilson supporters 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:42.600 are like a religion that's never a positive thing. Yeah. Yeah, 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:46.200 I mean I find myself doing that less and less 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:49.640 because I feel like I can have it's just me personally. 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.280 But I think there are plenty of things that I 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:54.600 can say, Oh, I have kind of a religious interest 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:57.359 in this. Yeah, not to say that I am, you 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:01.800 know that it's some sort of like fanatical, like unrealistic 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:06.880 level of enthusiasm for it, but like I I kind 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:09.200 of measure it like to the amount of my person 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:13.240