# Paul Allen: The Singularity Isn't Near



## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

Paul Allen: The Singularity Isn't Near.



> *The Singularity Summit approaches this weekend in New York. But the Microsoft cofounder and a colleague say the singularity itself is a long way off.*
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-- Tom


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

This kind of talk misses the essential point that while some people are waiting for "it" to happen, we have no idea in reality what "it" is. Comparing so-called "machine intelligence" to that of humans would first require that we know in detail what human intelligence is. And further, what intelligence itself is. Just because we can isolate cognitively what we believe to be mental faculties from all other human characteristics does not mean that they exist separate from one another in reality. What of those creatures that have bigger brains than we do? Chances are very good that they actually possess a type of intelligence that we are unable to even imagine. It's just possible that the dolphins return to the sea from being land creatures was a volitional act on their part, conceivably even after carefully evaluating what would happen to the Earth and themselves if they continued to live on land. It may seem unlikely, but it is not beyond the possible. Human brains have been shrinking for 500,000 years.

The thing that machines are missing is the fundamental origin of all thinking - to increase the chances of survival and reduce pain. It could be said without too much debate that all of our "intelligence" exists for that reason and that it is the starting point, "where talk comes from", of all intellectual exercise. It is motivation, the crucial factor that machines do not have. What machines will calculate, what they will "think" about, is still largely the choice of the designers. Machines lack a goal, and therefore cannot "think" in any way even similar to the way we do. It is almost never mentioned that emotion is not anything that anyone is trying to program into machines, and that is not simply because we don't know what it is, but also that most believe that it is not needed for "thought". It is an old, and one would have expected, obsolete hope of the Enlightenment that these things can be separated, dissected, and emulated. It is Aristotelian thinking, and not at all worthy of the modern, Galilean modes of thought that it would be hoped are practiced at least among the most "intelligent" among us. People will always have to turn the machines on.

And so on. No singularity, ever, at the rate we are going.


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## TechGuy (Feb 12, 1999)

Well written, Elvandil. I think my brain might have grown a little just trying to take all of that in.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

TechGuy said:


> Well written, Elvandil. I think my brain might have grown a little just trying to take all of that in.


LOL. Thanks. I was only hoping it made some sense, since it is something I have thought long and hard about for many years (ever since wondering whether the reassembled "person" at the other end of the Star Trek transporter is really the same person as the one who entered the machine). So, it was a balance between making sense and typing as little as I could get away with since I am a bad typist. 



TechGuy said:


> Well written, Elvandil. I think my brain might have grown a little just trying to take all of that in.


Maybe. But inflammation caused by stress is only temporary "growth". 

(If the transporter breaks halfway through, which person is the "real" Scottie, or are they both real?)


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## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

Kurzweil Responds: Don't Underestimate the Singularity.



> *Last week, Paul Allen and a colleague challenged the prediction that computers will soon exceed human intelligence. Now Ray Kurzweil, the leading proponent of the "Singularity," offers a rebuttal.*
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-- Tom


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