Singularity Summit Story on NPR Weekend Edition
December 2nd, 2007 –
Artificial Intelligence Enters Brave New World (click for story)
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Congratulations Tyler! This is a nice achievement.
As a total novice from Joe Public journeying into your home here, my first impression of the Singularity Institute is that it does not scare me about artificial intelligence.
The age old fear is history repeating itself in terms of ideologies and social positions rather than general intelligence about transformation.
It is better that the world of AI develops in relatively free-thinking environments rather than find its form in old time authoritarian politics. It is no longer visionary to suggest that the next 20 years are going to be profound, what’s new about AI is also new about how society engages.
What is new about social engagement is that there is more and more opportunity for people to think about and contemplate these developments at a personal and individual level, and in that regard what’s new is the ability to retain an open mind, to not be overwhelmed by scientific or mathematical rhetoric or submerged by the back and forth jostling of political positions.
I recognize that I have biases and prejudices that I have to deal with, so the problem from my own perspective is when we cease to view our own limitations and learnings and turn the finger of responsibility like we point missiles at that which we do not really understand. My online journey therefore is in part becoming aware of the very mistakes I do make and learning from those very mistakes, as well as challenge my own thinking through continuous but diverse overview of learning
What I do know from my initial experience is that even five minutes in a worthwhile AI learning environment does change how one looks at the world. Five minutes in an closed minded AI environment just simply switches off attention which by itself leads to louder extremes.
The willingness to be adaptive while retaining human conviction is the greatest challenge of all, but this should not be group against group but become more of an individual realization, and what is intelligence (when it is not processed by various disciplines) in reality other than awareness or be awake to what being adaptive and intelligent personally means.
In this regard, open mindedness is our ability to let go of what isn’t really applicable to our span of control, as well as retain that which provides us something that more resembles practical wisdom.
M.