Ok. Let's work on the invention aspect of the discussion.
Over thousands of years, humans went through a number of such "retiring inventions" that created new modes of existence. People often talk about the invention of agriculture, which over a long period of time made nomadic tribes extinct and involved violent clashes of civilizations, as recent as the Genghis Khan invasion into Europe and China, and the European invasion into the North America. Similarly, over the last three hundred years the invention of the industry has destroyed the agricultural way of life in most of the world, partially, through two world wars. Arguably, the invention of superintelligence is a part of this industrial revolution, i.e. its information stage.
Furthermore, many people conflate the presumed emergence of superintelligence with the mastery of biology and immortality, which shows an implicit bias toward computing as the ultimate invention. And if we take seriously claims about computing as the basis for superintelligence, we've already made the "last invention" some seventy years. Based on historical records, people thought about mechanics and then chemistry as last inventions too. But when we consider the real game changers in terms of expansion of human life in time and scope, we find antibiotics and fertilizers, which have nothing to do with computing.
Can we imagine that computing is going to play a major role in the next human transition? Probably, yes. Will it be the last invention? Probably, not, because you fundamentally can't reduce life to computation.
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Date: 2020-02-22 01:35 am (UTC)Over thousands of years, humans went through a number of such "retiring inventions" that created new modes of existence. People often talk about the invention of agriculture, which over a long period of time made nomadic tribes extinct and involved violent clashes of civilizations, as recent as the Genghis Khan invasion into Europe and China, and the European invasion into the North America. Similarly, over the last three hundred years the invention of the industry has destroyed the agricultural way of life in most of the world, partially, through two world wars. Arguably, the invention of superintelligence is a part of this industrial revolution, i.e. its information stage.
Furthermore, many people conflate the presumed emergence of superintelligence with the mastery of biology and immortality, which shows an implicit bias toward computing as the ultimate invention. And if we take seriously claims about computing as the basis for superintelligence, we've already made the "last invention" some seventy years. Based on historical records, people thought about mechanics and then chemistry as last inventions too. But when we consider the real game changers in terms of expansion of human life in time and scope, we find antibiotics and fertilizers, which have nothing to do with computing.
Can we imagine that computing is going to play a major role in the next human transition? Probably, yes. Will it be the last invention? Probably, not, because you fundamentally can't reduce life to computation.