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Invasor
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 Posted: Sat, 20th Dec 2014 14:38 Post subject: The Dominant Life Form in the Cosmos Is Probably Robotic |
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| Quote: | If and when we finally encounter aliens, they probably won’t look like little green men, or spiny insectoids. It’s likely they won’t be biological creatures at all, but rather, advanced robots that outstrip our intelligence in every conceivable way. While scores of philosophers, scientists and futurists have prophesied the rise of artificial intelligence and the impending singularity, most have restricted their predictions to Earth. Fewer thinkers—outside the realm of science fiction, that is—have considered the notion that artificial intelligence is already out there, and has been for eons.
Susan Schneider, a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, is one who has. She joins a handful of astronomers, including Seth Shostak, director of NASA’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, program, NASA Astrobiologist Paul Davies, and Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology Stephen Dick in espousing the view that the dominant intelligence in the cosmos is probably artificial. In her paper “Alien Minds," written for a forthcoming NASA publication, Schneider describes why alien life forms are likely to be synthetic, and how such creatures might think.
“Most people have an iconic idea of aliens as these biological creatures, but that doesn’t make any sense from a timescale argument,” Shostak told me. “I’ve bet dozens of astronomers coffee that if we pick up an alien signal, it’ll be artificial life.”
With the latest updates from NASA’s Kepler mission showing potentially habitable worlds strewn across the galaxy, it’s becoming harder and harder to assert that we’re alone in the universe. And if and when we do encounter intelligent life forms, we’ll want to communicate with them, which means we’ll need some basis for understanding their cognition. But for the vast majority of astrobiologists who study single-celled life, alien intelligence isn’t on the radar.
“If you asked me to bring together a panel of folks who have given the subject much thought, I would be hard pressed,” said Shostak. “Some think about communication strategies, of course. But few consider the nature of alien intelligence.”
Schneider’s paper is among the first to tackle the subject.
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more here
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| Posted: Sat, 20th Dec 2014 15:55 Post subject: |
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She is totally wrong. Aliens are transcendent. I guess she watched the wrong scifi series.
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| Posted: Sat, 20th Dec 2014 20:12 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Sat, 20th Dec 2014 20:21 Post subject: |
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How can people be so bold about things they know nothing about? What do we know about artificial life? Exactly nothing.
How far has artificial intelligence ... even progressed? Not far at all.
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Invasor
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Location: On the road
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| Posted: Sat, 20th Dec 2014 20:26 Post subject: |
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Guess I didn't quote one of the most relevant parts...
| Quote: | “There’s an important distinction here from just ‘artificial intelligence’,” Schneider told me. “I’m not saying that we’re going to be running into IBM processors in outer space. In all likelihood, this intelligence will be way more sophisticated than anything humans can understand.”
The reason for all this has to do, primarily, with timescales. For starters, when it comes to alien intelligence, there’s what Schneider calls the “short window observation”—the notion that, by the time any society learns to transmit radio signals, they’re probably a hop-skip away from upgrading their own biology. It’s a twist on the belief popularized by Ray Kurzweil that humanity’s own post-biological future is near at hand.
“As soon as a civilization invents radio, they’re within fifty years of computers, then, probably, only another fifty to a hundred years from inventing AI,” Shostak said. “At that point, soft, squishy brains become an outdated model.”
Schneider points to the nascent but rapidly expanding world of brain computer interface technology, including DARPA’s latest ElectRX neural implant program, as evidence that our own singularity is close. Eventually, Schneider predicts, we’ll not only upgrade our minds with technology, we’ll make a wholesale switch to synthetic hardware. |
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| Posted: Sat, 20th Dec 2014 21:28 Post subject: |
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That quote should've started with
"Let me state the obvious:"
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chiv
Posts: 27530
Location: Behind You...
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 05:04 Post subject: |
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| VGAdeadcafe wrote: | How can people be so bold about things they know nothing about? What do we know about artificial life? Exactly nothing.
How far has artificial intelligence ... even progressed? Not far at all. |
criticises people about making claims when they know nothing.... then makes claim while knowing nothing... 
Last edited by chiv on Thu, 25th Dec 2014 05:06; edited 1 time in total |
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 05:06 Post subject: I have left. |
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 09:39 Post subject: |
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Any robotic life form would quickly evolve and outgrow the very human need to learn and expand. These needs are ultimately pointless and any extremely logical being would realize it. So I do not believe such a civilization would have a bright future ahead of it.
My theory at least.
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Goon
Banned
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Location: Beyond the invisible
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 10:06 Post subject: |
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That might be the possibility. But it had to be built by someone, right? And there are earth like planets which are suitable for organics
and the real question is
 Spoiler: | |
Last edited by Goon on Thu, 25th Dec 2014 10:09; edited 1 time in total
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Morphineus
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 10:07 Post subject: |
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It's all much based on our own physiology not taking into account other possible types of biological life and how they might function.
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 10:37 Post subject: |
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couleur
[Moderator] Janitor
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 11:37 Post subject: |
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When we see them, there will be more than meets the eye!
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 12:36 Post subject: |
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You people watch too much scifi or just get easily excited about developments in robotics.
| Shoshomiga wrote: | | VGAdeadcafe wrote: | | How far has artificial intelligence ... even progressed? Not far at all. |
It is in your browser, that little search box that searches the entire sum of human knowledge with the help of an AI that is only getting smarter |
Intelligent indexing+searching and actual artificial intelligence are two different things.
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 13:07 Post subject: |
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Why not bacteria, travelling millions of light years maybe we already met them like when an asteroid crashes on earth. Small, indestructible and super-smart they are among us, in us in fact, and are controlling our minds and we are not even aware of it, then they send the feed to their home planet as a tv-show and they all have a good laugh "oh look, it's genocide on today".
In fact maybe the little guy is making me type this  
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| Posted: Thu, 25th Dec 2014 23:21 Post subject: I have left. |
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| Posted: Fri, 26th Dec 2014 00:42 Post subject: |
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The challenge is to work with information that isn't easily quantifiable (not sure if it's the right word)
When, for example, they create a car that can drive itself on unknown and real roads, then I'd be impressed. Or a humanoid that can move like a real person, fluidly.
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| Posted: Fri, 26th Dec 2014 00:59 Post subject: |
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Last edited by paxsali on Thu, 4th Jul 2024 21:54; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Sat, 27th Dec 2014 17:30 Post subject: |
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Some people report little green men to be very robotic in their movement. Also aliens have crafts that can bend space and fly very fast so they can reach distant planets in a few minutes.
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| Posted: Sat, 27th Dec 2014 18:15 Post subject: |
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Last edited by paxsali on Thu, 4th Jul 2024 21:54; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Sat, 27th Dec 2014 18:25 Post subject: |
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couleur
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Posts: 14328
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| Posted: Sun, 28th Dec 2014 13:13 Post subject: |
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| BearishSun wrote: | Any robotic life form would quickly evolve and outgrow the very human need to learn and expand. These needs are ultimately pointless and any extremely logical being would realize it. So I do not believe such a civilization would have a bright future ahead of it.
My theory at least. |
Agreed.
The first problem is that people assume out of thin air that through consciousness arises the need to gather knowledge, reproduce and expand. Allthough there is no reason whatsoever to think that. It is, in my opinion, alot more plausible to think that consciousness arises in biological beings because there is an irrational need to stay in existence (as much the own beeing as that of the progenture).
In the end, all robotic being is just a product of the intellect and as such the exact opposite to life which is difference. There is no reason, except for superstition (anthropormorphism f.e.) , to believe something created upon the concept of identity and repetition could ever become more than that. Robotics are the expression of the objectivation of matter through intellect and rooted in the concept of identity and repetition ruled by a specific logic. It needs to be like that, because the creators obviously will not create symbols they dont understand. It is created as a purely intellectual answer to problems posed to intelligent life-forms, it cannot therefor be a lifeform itself, no more than a car or a telescope. If robotic beeings have consciousness it is not consciousness but a mere symbol of consciounsness for their creators. It could very well become such that it would fool the creators.
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
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| Posted: Sun, 28th Dec 2014 17:20 Post subject: |
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Why would a robotic/synthetic society, with all its hypothetical intelligence and potential, not want to unravel the universe (just one example)? So they'd just say "what's the point" one day and stop?
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couleur
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| Posted: Sun, 28th Dec 2014 18:32 Post subject: |
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| Mister_s wrote: | | Why would a robotic/synthetic society, with all its hypothetical intelligence and potential, not want to unravel the universe (just one example)? |
Assuming robotic beeings would magically be conscious.
Well, why would they want to unravel the universe?
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
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| Posted: Sun, 28th Dec 2014 20:50 Post subject: |
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Why wouldn't they? Would an intelligent society not want to clarify the unknown? Why is that the domain of biological beings?
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couleur
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Dec 2014 01:10 Post subject: |
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Because intelligence is not the reason why we want to understand, it is a tool to understand. So being intelligent is in itself not enough.
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
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We only created television in the last hundred years, let's give it a bit more time shall we? 
