Catholic Answers article on the Singularity

[uncertainty]

John,

Still trying to chew through that monster of a post. I have seen you write about fifth turnings but I don't think I've seen anything written about them in the books. From what you have written a fifth turning sounds like a collective decision to put your head in the sand. If a society is able to put off a war or conflict and still survive to deal with the malaise. Does this represent a certain level of societal "free will" in the system? Obviously you can't put off problems indefinitely but still there may be situations where a society can potentially put off dealing with the problems at a severe cost to itself. Would this represent societal choice even in the system of GD? It seems to me that even in the situations where fifth turnings occur the leaders could have chosen to confront the problems but opted for the easier route. Is this an over reading?

[John]

> Still trying to chew through that monster of a post. I have seen
> you write about fifth turnings but I don't think I've seen
> anything written about them in the books. From what you have
> written a fifth turning sounds like a collective decision to put
> your head in the sand. If a society is able to put off a war or
> conflict and still survive to deal with the malaise. Does this
> represent a certain level of societal "free will" in the system?
> Obviously you can't put off problems indefinitely but still there
> may be situations where a society can potentially put off dealing
> with the problems at a severe cost to itself. Would this represent
> societal choice even in the system of GD? It seems to me that even
> in the situations where fifth turnings occur the leaders could
> have chosen to confront the problems but opted for the easier
> route. Is this an over reading?

There are several countries in a Fifth Turning today -- Mexico,
Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Russia, and others. Also, for
the West as a whole, the Fourth Turning began in 2003, so
we're on the cusp of a Fifth Turning right now.

The need for the Fifth Turning concept is obvious, since many
countries go through the Fourth Turning without a crisis, and the
question arises whether a country fundamentally changes during the
Fifth Turning just as it does in each of the earlier turnings.

I started developing the theory behind Fifth Turnings after the
7/7/2005 London subway bombings, because of a book that came out with
statistics on the countries producing suicide bombers. It turned out
that they were all from Fifth Turning countries.

** Belgians shocked that suicide bomber is Belgian woman
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e051202


** Robert Pape's 'Dying to Win' sheds light on suicide bombers.
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... 18pape.htm

I continued developing the Fifth Turning concept over the years, as
in:

** Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... 070401.htm

One of the findings was that suicide bombers in Iraq were NEVER from
Iraq (a 2nd turning country), and had to be imported from Saudi Arabia
(a 5th turning country).

[FishbellykanakaDude]

An on-off switch? <CHORTLE!> Hee heh he he he

<chuckle!> What? You don't believe in on-off switches?

Can you name a single tool that doesn't have an on-off switch?

..even hammers can be dropped to the floor.

When has man ever created anything they couldn't shut off?

..only knowledge, disease and forest fires. The first needs constant effort to implement, and the other two eventually burn themselves out.

Mahaloz dude! <shaka nui!>

[John]

> An on-off switch? <CHORTLE!> Hee heh he he he

> <chuckle!> What? You don't believe in on-off switches?
> Can you name a single tool that doesn't have an on-off switch?
> ..even hammers can be dropped to the floor.

> When has man ever created anything they couldn't shut off?
> ..only knowledge, disease and forest fires. The first needs
> constant effort to implement, and the other two eventually burn
> themselves out.
> Mahaloz dude! <shaka nui!>

OK, so imagine that you, General Fishy, are leading an army across the
plains, and all of a sudden you see a swarm of about 100 drones flying
over the horizon headed for your army. The drones are all networked
together and capable of making coordinated attacks. Each drone is
equipped with a loaded machine gun, and they've been pre-programmed to
kill you and your entire army. Also, each drone has an on-off switch.

Question: General, Sir, which on-off switch do you reach for?

By the way, I didn't know that there was a special name for
these self-directed killer robots. It appeared in an article
on AI in military operations. They're called:

Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems or LAWS

Appearing in this article:

Artificial Intelligence in Military Operations: Technology, Ethics and
the Indian Perspective

https://idsa.in/idsacomments/artificial ... war_310118

[FishbellykanakaDude]

> An on-off switch? <CHORTLE!> Hee heh he he he

> <chuckle!> What? You don't believe in on-off switches?
> Can you name a single tool that doesn't have an on-off switch?
> ..even hammers can be dropped to the floor.

> When has man ever created anything they couldn't shut off?
> ..only knowledge, disease and forest fires. The first needs
> constant effort to implement, and the other two eventually burn
> themselves out.
> Mahaloz dude! <shaka nui!>

OK, so imagine that you, General Fishy, are leading an army across the
plains, and all of a sudden you see a swarm of about 100 drones flying
over the horizon headed for your army. The drones are all networked
together and capable of making coordinated attacks. Each drone is
equipped with a loaded machine gun, and they've been pre-programmed to
kill you and your entire army. Also, each drone has an on-off switch.

Firstly,.. "General Fishy",.. Me LIKEY..!!

Question: General, Sir, which on-off switch do you reach for?

The on-off switches are only accessible to the owner of the "robot", obviously.

Also, the entire "group" of drones should have a single on-off switch,.. also obviously.

Now, if YOU own the drones that are attacking you, then perhaps you (your side) shouldn't have allowed the drone-group to override the "don't attack your owner" directive, and/or the "disable the on-off switch" directive.

You're a programmer, fer Goodny's sake! Would YOU make those mistakes? I think not...

So, to directly answer your question: You don't reach for ANY on-off switch. You command YOUR drone-group to engage the enemy drone-group and you implement the rest of the "enemy drone attack" protocol.

If you haven't GOT an "enemy drone attack" protocol, what the FNERK is your stupid ass doing on the battlefield?


Aloha most intelligent dude! All hail The Dude who Abides, El Duderino! Amen,.. mahaloz man. <shaka NUI!>

[psCargile]

And if there are two or more AI "overlords" competing for dominance. . . .

[FishbellykanakaDude]

And if there are two or more AI "overlords" competing for dominance. . . .

The "second" AI won't be able to catch up with the "first" one, due to the exponential nature of the "increase in intelligence" of "singularity precursor" AI's.

..obviously.

And if the "second" AI has inherently better programming than the "first", such that it can overcome the other's head start, then it will VERY quickly "overpower" the "first" AI, and is even more likely to fly into "Overlord AI" territory ahead of all its competitors.

But, in any case, the flight into the Singularity will be so fast that mankind will probably not have time to finish a half eaten Snickers Bar before "it's all over".

..and that is why I'm not a great believer in the Singularity happening,.. as I don't see mankind being smart enough, and stupid enough, to connect up potential "singularity precursor" AI's to physical and data systems of sufficient power to allow the exponentially explosive intelligence increase to happen, leaving us with anything more than a "contained Djinn".

Then again,.. djinn HAVE been known to escape...


Aloha! <shaka!>

[psCargile]

I doubt the Singularity will be what we expect. Across species, intelligence is adaptive and suitable for a variety of survival strategies. Our intelligence is one of tool making, unlike the dolphin, or the octopus. What kind of intelligence do we expect the machine to have?

[FishbellykanakaDude]

I doubt the Singularity will be what we expect. Across species, intelligence is adaptive and suitable for a variety of survival strategies. Our intelligence is one of tool making, unlike the dolphin, or the octopus. What kind of intelligence do we expect the machine to have?

My guess would be "pattern matching" per se.

The tricky bit with "increasing the intelligence" of AI, assuming a "neural net"-like learning method, is the "testing the net by getting meaningful positive/negative feedback from the real world" process, and what "meaningful" means.

I hinge my entire argument against the Singularity on my opinion that humanity is not smart enough, AND not stupid enough, to "hyper-educate" a proto-sentient AI with sufficiently "meaningful" neural training, and THEN to connect such a beast to a physical means to enforce it's newly found "free will" to action.

..yet, I could be wrong.

I do see non-sentient very intelligent AIs acting as our infinitely malleable tools, though.

Meaning, we could easily be enslaved, or freed from servitude, by groups within mankind wielding those tools. But servitude TO those tools,.. I think not.


Aloha! <shaka!>

[FishbellykanakaDude]

https://youtu.be/_kBlH-DQsEg?t=22m28s

Tom Scott - 2030 - What Happens Next?

..do watch the whole thing from the beginning once you've seen the end.


Aloha! <shaka!>