Novacene ?

[petemcewan 27]

"Novacene" by James Lovelock.

 

What on earth is he on about ?  Anybody ?

[Top Cats Hat 10]

Quite simply, he is challenging the notion that once humans evolved, we will be here until the end of time. His argument is that just as we replaced what came before us, we too will be replaced, more than likely by some form of artificial intelligence which will eventually out out perform us in all areas.

[muddycoffee 10]

Well this is obvious. Humans have only lived for a tiny fraction of many of the most successful species.

[Top Cats Hat 10]

16 minutes ago, muddycoffee said:

Well this is obvious. Humans have only lived for a tiny fraction of many of the most successful species.

Not entirely obvious. Unlike other successful species, humans have the ability to extend their survival by medicine, technology and the ability to travel to and colonise other worlds if there is an existential threat to the earth.

 

Lovelock contends that this ability to advance will ultimately work to our detriment as we will be the creators of the ‘species’ which will replace us.

[lil-minx92 10]

Planet earth is dying at an exponential rate and the human race will die out long before we have the ability to colonise other planets or invent any AI capable of taking over from us. We will be replaced by something of course. Maybe some type of sea slug. Have a nice evening! 

[Top Cats Hat 10]

6 minutes ago, lil-minx92 said:

Planet earth is dying at an exponential rate and the human race will die out long before we have the ability to colonise other planets 

Not true. They have already developed a process for grinding up moondust, heating and pressurising it to plasticise it so that buildings can be 3D printed with it.

 

This will be done within the next decade. 🌘👍

[Pettytom 1]

3 hours ago, Top Cats Hat said:

Not true. They have already developed a process for grinding up moondust, heating and pressurising it to plasticise it so that buildings can be 3D printed with it.

 

This will be done within the next decade. 🌘👍

Will they be able to 3D print 3D printers?

 

If so, Lovelock might be onto something

[Top Cats Hat 10]

4 minutes ago, Pettytom said:

Will they be able to 3D print 3D printers?

 

If so, Lovelock might be onto something

3D printers are already made by 3D printers (or many parts for them are.)

 

The turning point will come when we first allow AI robots to design and manufacture other AI robots. If we don’t firmware something like Asimov’s ‘three laws’ into them, we will be permanently out of the loop and unable to get back in.

[apelike 10]

4 minutes ago, Top Cats Hat said:

The turning point will come when we first allow AI robots to design and manufacture other AI robots. If we don’t firmware something like Asimov’s ‘three laws’ into them, we will be permanently out of the loop and unable to get back in.

The turning point will come when we can build a robot with the same physical sensitivity, control and dexterity as the human and that is about as far off as the cold fusion that may be needed to power it. You know, one that can pick up a tiny screw that I have dropped and fix my glasses frame for me.  AI sounds scary and is a great scfi story that sells but it is no good on its own as all the other bits also have to be in place for it to work to survive and take over, and that will take an extremely long time if at all. Its a bit like what we were told it would be like in the year 2000 with flying cars, free energy, people living on the Moon etc. We will need to invent so much other stuff that is not around to make this anywhere near a reality especially when it comes to processors as there is a limit to how small a transistor can be. So we now have to invent new methods of production of the chips that will be the central core of the AI interface. That will take time will also costs money and just like anything else unless there is a monetary benefit at the end it just wont happen.

 

There is one thing about the human body and that is it is very efficient, OK two things... and the other is that is it is also self replicating.

 

[Top Cats Hat 10]

5 minutes ago, apelike said:

We will need to invent so much other stuff that is not around to make this anywhere near a reality especially when it comes to processors as there is a limit to how small a transistor can be.

That limit at the moment is about half the wavelength of visible light for photo etching microchips and we are not there yet. 

 

This stuff moves very fast. A friend of mine is an Apple nut and has kept every iPhone since they came out in 2007. I was looking at his iPhone 1 a couple of months ago and it is really pants compared to my iPhone 5S which came out only 6 years later. But when it came out it was like some kind of magic device. The latest iPhone X or whatever it’s called has half a terabyte of onboard memory. My first 1gig hard drive cost over £300 and I bought it cheap in Japan. Today I can by a 16G USB stick for a £1 out of the Poundshop that reads and writes way faster than my very expensive Seagate HDD.

 

Don’t underestimate how fast this stuff is moving! 😵

[apelike 10]

43 minutes ago, Top Cats Hat said:

Don’t underestimate how fast this stuff is moving! 😵

It may be moving fast but it is also going to hit a limit in the near future. My AMD PC CPU has a die that is built on a 14nm process and AMD have just released a 7nm chip which is practically as small as it can get (maybe 5nm) before they start to suffer from quantum effects. So we are looking at maybe only another 10 years before it all has to be re-invented, and the latter is what it is all about as at the moment there is no viable alternative.

 

Just how many 16G USB sticks would be needed for an AI to replicate the brain, not forgetting that they only store memory and are not processors.... 

Edited September 10, 2019 by apelike

[Top Cats Hat 10]

2 minutes ago, apelike said:

So we are looking at maybe only another 10 years before it all has to be re-invented,

It is being re-invented as we speak in many parallel developments, one or more of which will become the standard technology of the future. 👍