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• timothy.scott.freeman commented on A Rebuttal of 'The Singularity is Further Than it Appears'
  Here's a quantity that's going to diverge to infinity and cause us trouble: years of human intellectual labor required to pay for a year of human leisure. For example, if I eat $10K of food per year, and I earn $100K, then I have $90K to spare. I need to pay $10K for my year of leisure, so I have to work $10K/$90K = 1/9 year to pay for my year of leisure. If the AI researchers go make a human-equivalent AI that can do a year of human intellectual labor for $200K in electricity and amortized hardware costs, that...
• Greg. Tingey commented on A Rebuttal of 'The Singularity is Further Than it Appears'
  Already happening, in the form of "expert systems" E.G. Small law-firms are going to the wall (in the UK) in large numbers, because said syatems allow huge numbers of people to do their own wills/probate/disposal of assets, where formerly, the lawyers took a cut. CNC machine-tools ...... etc, ad nauseam....
• Giulio Prisco commented on A Rebuttal of 'The Singularity is Further Than it Appears'
  @Charlie re "an astrophysicist trying to square the circle of Christian doctrine with modern cosmology" So what? Leonardo tried to square the circle of Greek myths of flying heroes like Icarus with technology. He failed because the technology of his time wasn't good enough, but the Wright brothers succeeded....
• dirk.bruere commented on A Rebuttal of 'The Singularity is Further Than it Appears'
  Hi Giulio! The thing about Transhumanist ideas coupled with religion is that, unlike traditional religions, if we are wrong now we might be able to make it right later. If Heaven does not exist we can build it. If the Tree of Life is mythology, anti-aging tech may not be. If transmigration of souls if bullshit we might be able to do uploads instead. If the Messiah never existed, maybe we can engineer it as a superhuman AGI. If the Gods do not exist now, maybe they will do in the future....
• Giulio Prisco commented on A Rebuttal of 'The Singularity is Further Than it Appears'
  Right, Dirk. As Arthur Clarke said, perhaps we are not supposed to worship God, but to create Him....