Cliffs: There are very few valid arguments of the singularity present in this thread. The invalid arguments tend to be ad hominem attacks. Of the valid arguments, futurists have powerful arguments - mainly, modern AI doesn't have the same weaknesses as the old Strong AI. Our claim is that Searle's argument inadequately deals with the brain simulator reply. Also, we predict brain research will allow brain simulation without an understanding of the brain. Lastly, the critiques of transhumanism by MM / Rollos are both powerful and relevant.
The thread so far (in chronological order)
- Extrapolation makes this concept invalid. (hardball47, durkadruka, PrinceOfPokerstars)
- Kurzweil resembles an eschatological cult, and will be immune to evidence. (durkadurka)
- Kurzweil's nontech predictions are bad (econophile, Tom Crowley)
- Kurzweil is beyond absurd (jb9)
- Kurzweil is a product of survivorship bias (dd33)
- Kurzweil is a delusional liar with arguments worse than those given by creationists (TomCrowley)
- Kurzweil underestimates political, economic, and social developments. (one sentence itt. Seriously, one sentence)
- Kurzweil's ideas are as refutable as the FSM (dd33)
- There is a difference between computers and machines (dd33)
- Strong AI might be impossible. (dd33, jb9(?), river_tilt, hardball_47, vixticator)
- Understanding of the brain will delay the singularity (or make it impossible). (ctyri)
- Kurzweil's predictions had a different probability of occuring than his prediction of the singularity (Max Raker, MM).
- Futurists and science fiction writers tend to extrapolate existing technological trends too aggressively while missing unforeseen developments (MM)
- Cybernetic totalism has become too powerful of an ideology among the worlds technocrats, and it has terrifying consequences. (Jaytee, who linked an excellent essay)
- Kurzweil is friends with a homeopath and believes in whack-job medicine.
- The singularity is not desirable (Ironlaw, Rollos)
- The singularity is just Rapture for atheists (A_c_slater)
- Kurzweil is intellectually dishonest, as demonstrated by his charts (Jaytee)
- Futurists provide an intellectually lazy way of evading the human condition. (MM, Rollos, endorsed by me (Plancer))
- No one is qualified to predict technology, but people who lick Kurzweil's testicles make an exception for him. (dd33)
- Computational complexity will be a relevant hurdle to arriving at the singularity (Max Raker)
- Kurzweil's tech track record is terrible (Tom Cowley, Jaytee)
- The world's governments will prevent the singularity (Skeletori)
- Gains in AI aren't AI, technologism is faith based, and technologism will worsen the alienation the third world feels when faced with modernization. (econophile, brandx)
- PZ Myers doesn't like Kurzweil (dd33, jb9)
Obviously valid arguments against the singularity: 1,7,10,11, 21?(I disagree),23?
Valid arguments against futurist philosophy: 12,13,14,16,19
The Standard Reply to Rational Arguments:
1) (Exponentials) We have evidence that Moore's law has a few more doublings left (prototypes exist for transistors of appropriate size), allowing supercomputers to breach the singularity threshold with great ease. There are many avenues of research to move to a new substrate when we exhaust silicon. Very little discussion in this thread has been on the likelihood that Moore's law will continue, but it's a valid criticism.
7) (Political / Economic / Social changes)This argument is undeveloped from both camps.
10)(Strong AI) Searle's argument doesn't answer the brain simulator reply. Modern AI advocates are radically different from the Strong AI crowd that Searle was attacking - Searle was showing that the plan to bypass studying the brain and skipping straight to a conscious machine was suspicious. Modern AI advocates (among whom is Kurzweil) want to reverse engineer the brain. In short, a great deal of modern AI thinkers are looking to gains in neuroscience to progress their field.
11) (Understanding the brain is a major hurdle) Good point, but we disagree on how solvable this problem is. We expect gains in brain research to generate a connectome in our life times. We plan to brute force brain simulation using data acquired via imaging, without necessitating an intuitive understanding of how the brain works. Although I don't know if we've explicitly stated it, I think it is safe to say that futurists do not anticipate an understanding of the brain in our lifetimes, nor in any lifetime. We don't need to understand it, in the same sense that we don't need to understand the mathematics of complexity regarding networks in order to evolve them.
12) (the probability of Kurzweil being correct about the singularity is very different from him being correct about a technical development) Good point, but Kurzweil is the cheerleader, not the football team. He coined the term and mobilized interest, but the possibility of a singularity is independent of him.
13) (Futurists exaggerate existing trends and are blind to unexpected changes). This is true, but the basis of modern futurism is a prediction of exponential growth in IT, whereas past futurism expected the technologies of the elite to become mainstream (space travel) and aggressively expected automation to replace all forms of labor (an extrapolation of "profession x was automated, so all professions will be automated). Modern futurism's Achilles Heel is Moore's Law, not the social acceptance or economic viability of technology.
14) (Critiques of Cybernetics) This is an excellent point, but aside from a few posts by Rollos and MM, has largely not been discussed in this thread.
16) (The Singularity is not desirable) This may be true, but the word "singularity" captures the ambiguous nature of the event. Information doesn't escape a black hole, and hence we can't form judgements. The fact some people are predicting a transformative future with consequences we can't predict is adequate to form a critique of it, but it might be as powerless as a critique of the internet (a powerful disruptive technology which is fundamentally remolding human civilization and the balance of power between the 1st and 3rd world, but is beyond control).
19) (Futurism is a form of escapism, allowing you to evade the human condition) Good point.
21) (Complexity) Singularity-types don't predict a solution to computational complexity, and we don't have any developments contingent
23) (The singularity will be prevented) Interesting, but this area hasn't been discussed
Responses to less reasonable arguments
2) (Eschatological Comparisons) ad hominem predicated on
something he didn't do yet
3) (Nontech predictions) irrelevant
4) (Kurzweil sucks, yo) ad hominem
5) (Survivorship bias) irrelevant (attacks Kurzweil, not idea) Furthermore, I (plancer), Karganeth, and a few others claim to have shown that his predictions are distinctly different from those which could be a product of survivorship bias. The crux of the argument is that survivorship bias is an artifact of the binomial theorem
when the probability of a bernoulli trial's failure is high enough to be relevant. Karganeth, myself (Plancer), and a few others claim the bernoulli trials, when generated randomly, should have a probability that vanishingly small due to combinatorics (monkeys typing Shakespeare argument).
6) (Delusional liar) ad hominem, beyond the pale
8) (FSM) irrelevant groundless vitriol
9) (Difference between computers and machines) Brain simulator reply
15) (Kurzweil is bad at medicine) irrelevant (though true) ad hominem
17) (Rapture) Nu uh.
18) (Kurzweil's charts). You said that the charts could be constructed at any point in human history. Kurzweil would agree, because d/dx e^x = e^x.
ZING.
20) (Testicle licking) We need the salt. I mean, uh, that's an irrelevant ad hominem that's beyond the pale.
22) (Tech predictions) irrelevant to singularity. That being said, this is VERY controversial.
24) (Gains in AI aren't gains in AI, technologism is faith based). The first is a true but irrelevant statement, and it does not apply to futurists. It applies to science journalists, who I'm pretty sure we all dislike. I think I refuted the second point.
25) (PZ Myers) I think I obliterated this argument.