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Moore's Law Won't Create The Singularity On Its Own
Rudy Rucker Gives You Nine Ideas for Scifi that Breaks the Rules

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Grey_Area
02/27/09

In reply to Moore's Law Won't Create The Singularity On Its Own
I always thought Moore's law stated that the amount of ire over movies adapted from his work would double every eighteen months.
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The Curse of Millhaven
02/27/09

In reply to Moore's Law Won't Create The Singularity On Its Own
These discussions always leave me asking myself what human consciousness is in the first place. I am not sure that we really know that well enough to recreate it even if we had the tools. One thing that I do believe is that Turing tests are not sufficient to indicate consciousness, since they basically assume that any forgery good enough to fool you counts as the real thing.
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Tyler Laing
02/27/09

@The Curse of Millhaven: Basically, you're right. But the real problem with the Turing test is that its not objective, and not reliably repeatable.

Hence why state-of-the art AI research doesn't focus on passing the Turing test ;).
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Grey_Area
02/27/09

@Tyler Laing: Ooh I think I know this one, the Chinese Room, right? There could be algorithims that match patterns in language and follow rules of grammar allowing it to converse without any understanding of the conversation whatsoever.
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corpore-metal
02/27/09

@Grey_Area: It's my opinion that Searle's Chinese Room is bunk.

But yes, I agree with Tyler that the turing test is hardly rigorous or objective. Regardless, it is still a compelling argument that something is sapient.
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Grey_Area
02/27/09

@corpore-metal: I've been skimming over Searle and this vitalism and I see what you mean. I know a smidgen of Chinese myself, the "rulebook" to be able handle it or any other language fluently would be so complicated you might as well call it a mind.

So if not the Turing test, what? How do we know consciousness when we see it. I guess that's why philosophers and cognitive researchers get paid the big bucks.
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corpore-metal
02/27/09

@Grey_Area: Right, that's my position too.

The rulebooks to handle any conversation, in a language and handle it well, would be so complex that they'd have to be sapient. The person inside the room who just writes notes or answers and shuffles paper around according to the rulebook is just a neuron processing data> He or she doesn't have to understand anything but, the whole system is sapient and capable of semantic understanding.

But this brings us around to your question, if not the Turing test, what can we use?

I don't know what else to use. I mean in daily life how do we know other people are conscious? I'm just this set of disembodied bits of text on a website, pretending to be an interesting conversationalist. Am I really a real person?

We don't have an objective test to prove consciousness yet. It might be a phantasm, maybe there is no way to have an objective test. Consciousness is actually a continuum. It's a matter of degree. There is no clear dividing line between mind and mindlessness.

And our society rolls on regardless. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
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Grey_Area
02/27/09

@corpore-metal: As usual, you've given me a lot to think about. Thanks, my little imaginary friend!
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Grey_Area
02/27/09

In reply to Moore's Law Won't Create The Singularity On Its Own
Start the Singularity without me, I don't think I'll be any use to the consenus reality, noösphere whatever. I enjoyed Rainbow's End and similarly themed stuff from Karl Schroeder etc. I have no idea what all this geometric node pingers and whatnot means. I feel dumb.
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pz
02/27/09

In reply to Moore's Law Won't Create The Singularity On Its Own
Doesn't Moore's Law state that transistor count doubles every two years, not processing power?

They're often linked, but not always.
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CSX321
02/27/09

@mdmadph: Yes, I was just going to say the same thing. See [www.intel.com] .
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Charlie Jane Anders
02/27/09

@CSX321: Yeah I was afraid I was oversimplifying there. I googled it last night to make sure, but still got it askew. Bah.
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