For Everyone's Consideration

I had planned on writing something interesting today, but instead, I am posting something I wish everyone would think about. I'll probably wax philosophical about it later, but in the meantime, here's a couple of things I think everyone should at least think about once or twice in the next few years.

First, I give you Reverend Ray:



Next, a link to a paper written by Reverend Vinge in 1993:

http://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html

I am especially fond of this bit:

"Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an "intelligence explosion," and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the _last_ invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control. ... It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention that man need make.

Good has captured the essence of the runaway, but does not pursue its most disturbing consequences. Any intelligent machine of the sort he describes would not be humankind's "tool" -- any more than humans are the tools of rabbits or robins or chimpanzees."

I'll write more on this later. I just wanted to get people's imagination cogs turning.

The first person to make a 666 "Beast" reference loses the game.