From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Sun Sep 17 2000 - 15:40:52 MDT
Alex you speak of founder advantages- are you talking about starting a
commercial effort in this area, or are you planning an open source approach?
(P.S. aren't you already working on something else? How will you have time
for this?)
Alex Future Bokov wrote:
>
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> On Sat, 16 Sep 2000, E. Shaun Russell wrote:
>
> > I am a bit embarassed to admit that I have not heard any cohesive talk
> > about an Earthweb until now; as such, any questions I now ask will likely
> > seem lightweight and redundant until I actually read some more documentation.
>
> Don't worry, you're among friends.
>
> > The whole concept sounds very heady and prestigious, and ultimately very
> > do-able. Obviously, a "collaborative superconsciousness" of sorts should
> > be tops on our ten-year to-do list. So what kind of
>
> More like two years, tops.
>
> > software\communications do we currently have to make something like this
> > feasible? I'm not too concerned about the economics of it at this
>
> Micropayments, pseudonymous identities that each have a reputation
> associated with them, collaborative filtering, improved searching,
> smart contracts, and a really intuitive but powerful interface for
> discussion/collaboration and you pretty much have it.
>
> Economics is important, because an economy already *is* a transhuman
> decision making system. A group mind. The challenge is just to make it
> smarter, remove more friction, allow it to expand into domains that up
> till now have been reserved to individual intelligences.
>
> > point...the technical basis is what is most important at such an early
> > stage. Is there any work currently being done on such a project?
>
> Yes, from several directions.
>
> > Again, my apologies for sounding a bit awestruck, but this concept (on a
> > feasible scale) has received little discussion in any circles I am familiar
> > with.
>
> I'm not sure that everybody who's working on the effort is fully aware
> of its implications. Foresight Institute, for example, calls it 'social
> software'. The trade press calls it 'online communities'. It definitely
> needs more discussion, and that's why I want to round up all the
> Transhumanist web developers et. al. and start a new forum on how to
> design-ahead for this. That, by the way, is why I see the
> weblog-on-every-desktop scenario as a desirable one, Eliezer-- it's an
> intermediate step to EarthWeb (cf. our eGroups debate in front of Nick
> Bostrom). Of course, competitive pressures will eventually force some
> company someplace to develop the software, and then all web developers
> everywhere to adopt it. However, I want Transhumanist-run companies
> and Transhumanist web developers to have the founder advantage.
>
> So, why should a Singularitarian care about EarthWeb?
>
> 1. Any new technology may face unforseen obstacles. That's why they're
> called unforseen. Two semi-redundant technologies aiming for the same
> goal are a safer bet.
>
> 2. EarthWeb will drive economic, engineering, and intellectual
> developments that may make the job of SingInst easier. Correct me
> if I'm wrong, but the optimistic time scale for >AI is 10-15 years.
> The very pessimistic timescale for EarthWeb is 5 years. The large
> scale behavior of EarthWeb itself may also inspire shortcuts and
> warn of potential pitfalls that await Transhuman intelligences as
> a class, whether individual or collective.
>
> 3. One way to think of EarthWeb is as an upload of human society...
> laws, markets, reputations, relationships, institutions, factual
> knowledge, creative works... pretty much everything except the actual
> humans. Having such an infrastructure in place is a necessary
> prerequisite to the uploading of humans... when uploading comes there
> will be too many other things to worry about to be writing the rules of
> human interaction from scratch at the same time.
>
> - --
>
> Oklahoma City Delta Force Gore
> Why are the above words in my signature? Check out:
> http://www.echelon.wiretapped.net
>
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-- Brian Atkins Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.intelligence.org/
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