(April 28, 2010 at 3:21 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: ...since I hold the philosophical view that there is no afterlife, I also do indeed believe that, thank fuck, we as a species won't last forever. Now that is pretty obvious to me really.
How long is another matter.
Not as long as the dinosaurs I hope.
That thought gives me some comfortlol
Anyway, I wonder if I can have some serious responses to this thread. And humorous if you wish of course
EvF
Some speculation:
We are currently a long way from developing true AI (machine consciousness)- in fact we don't even have a clear idea of how/ where to start. However, I think that strong AI is definitely possible (and yes, I am aware of the arguments on both sides). Given the nature of technology, it seems inevitable that (barring civilizational collapse) we will eventually develop strong AI- not in the lifetime of anyone currently alive, but eventually.
And once we do that then intelligence becomes a function of technological progress. AIs can design more powerful AIs. We will be in an age of machine evolution, which will occur much more quickly than biological evolution possibly could.
Perhaps we will die out in the end. But how about the lineage of machines that we will have started? They would be much more robust than us, much more adaptable, much smarter. Perhaps they will survive for an awful lot longer.
So our position in the greater scheme of things might be this: we are the link between the age of biology and the age of intelligent machines. And if we become extinct, who cares, really? We will have been responsible for the inception of something much greater than ourselves.
All of which may be grossly over-optimistic. In reality, its just as likely that we'll thoroughly fuck up the planet, use up all the easily accessible mineral resources (thus making it very difficult for any future intelligent species to develop industry/ technology), not develop AI, and then wipe ourselves out.
Humans
