Comments on: Singularity lacking in motivation

By: Jonas

Jonas — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:21:36 +0000

Self-preservation is the only motivating force. There is no other.

By: tychoish

tychoish — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:02:02 +0000

so the argument is/was “we needed the cold war to get to the moon,” and that outside of that context going to the moon, and exploring space doesn’t seem like it’s that… useful? productive?

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:27:43 +0000

I’m willing to bet that the exponentially-increasing machine intelligence will be something like a far more complex version of our current computers; they are already capable of superhuman mental feats (doing things like rendering video, or instantly searching a massive database, for instance). It’s not like our current computers sit and do one thing repetitively like a mechanical machine; they perform an almost infinite variety of functions. The motivation for those functions is outsourced to the human brain. I’m not sure that the singularity requires something like “machine motivation”, I think that humans will do just fine supplying the motivation as we already do. (disclaimer: I am not a singularity expert, but this seems logical to me)

By: Wollff

Wollff — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:16:38 +0000

I love the singularians!
Worrying about motivation, when they don’t even have the goal. Worrying that their AGI might one day just sputter out, when they have no idea how to even start the engine… Not even speaking of steering that vehicle in the right direction.
The problem is less that the machine must pursue its goals, it must have a goal in the first place. So which is the goal you have to pursue in order to end up behaving intelligently on the way?
The answer for humans is the collection of food, drink, and the raising of a family in a complex and hostile environment. After about four billion years something resembling intelligent behavior (from a human perspective) came out. That was the long way.
Does anyone have an idea about the short way?
I at least don’t.