Matt’s Blog

I stumbled upon (using StumbleUpon of course) a few articles about futurists, and one of the main ideas I found were essays about “the Singularity” Put simply, “the Singularity” is a theoretical period in time when our inventions, generally computers, become so intelligent that they are able to recreate themselves without human intervention, doing so faster and better than we ever could. Thus the time to intelligence curve becomes extremely exponential. A post singularity world would be made of the stuff of science fiction movies. Super intelligent humans (assuming we’re invited to the party) would interface their minds with computers and understand the physics of the universe with such clarity that none of the human problems that exist today would trouble us.

I have no problem with optimism, but I’m also a fan of reality. Some futurists predict singularities in a spectacularly short amoun of time. Maybe they should watch the futuristic science fiction movies of the eighties, and see if any of those predictions came true. The problem with the whole idea in my opinion, is that the whole thing is based on an exponential learning curve. Moore’s Law is no law at all, it’s already failed. Advances in computing power are going to start coming at high prices. We’re going to have to start using our brain power to maximize computer use, instead of just relying on next years processors.

No human has ever learned anything exponentially. You learn the easy things first, which feels exponential, and then things level off, and you get into the unexplored territory where you have to struggle to pick up anything, which is when most humans give up. Learning curves are logarithmic for us, and they will be for computer intelligences if we ever manage to create them.

The whole thing is kind of fun to think about, but leave it for the movies.

I’m heading off to Brazil on Saturday.  I’m way excited.  Though I haven’t thought much about it.  I guess that’s because I make a conscious effort to live in the present, and not think much about the past or present.  I only do that because I’ve often felt like I missed out on things in life because I was always looking ahead to the next thing.  It helps when times are tough, but it hurts times like this.  Some say anticipation is better than participation, and I kind of believe it.  In any case, I’ll be in Brazil all week, and there’s internet in the hotel I’m staying at, so I’ll probably be blogging if it works.  Stay tuned!

When it comes to the debate of prison and criminal reform, I’m definitely on the nurture side of the debate.  I think that society has as much a role in creating a criminal as the criminal himself does.  That’s why I’ve always believed that if someone convicted of a crime completes their sentence in good faith, the crime should be wiped from their record, whatever type of crime that might be.  The inmate has done his/her part, and forgetting about mistakes made is our part.  No man is an island.

There are some complaints against technology. It can leave us a lot of free time, and that time sometimes gets used for negative purposes. I’ve always held that as one among many of the causes of strife in the Middle East. I’ve come to believe differently. If a person is busy working just to survive, just surviving is a great victory, and there is left no more room for other desires. But given more free time, we seem to have other battles to fight, more personal battles that are often harder to win. Even though it may seem like the free time has caused more difficulty, or stolen happiness, it hasn’t. It’s merely given us different opportunities for growth.