I just watched Deep Space, Season 2, Episode 11, and it was vastly less weird than some of them, although I am probably forgetting some of the really weird things I happened to agree with.
Why do you think this is not a popular conversation? Is it, perhaps, for the same reason the solvency–as discussed from a detailed data perspective–of Social Security and Medicare are not discussed often, at least honestly?
I really think that, by and large, the future of the human species will be decided within ten years. By 2030 at the outside, but likely sooner.
Think about Moore’s Law: a doubling in processing capacity every 18 months. Take today. By the middle of 2020 current best chips will have doubled. By 2022 again. By 2024 again. Etc.
And when you are doubling something that is already absurdly fast, that is a major step forward.
Can anyone really doubt that what they call in that documentary Stage 2 AI will happen somewhere in the early 2020’s, if not sooner?
As I say, I look at all this, and I am awed. Overawed. I want to retreat. I want to dissolve my perceptions, and retreat to simply and stupid things.
But, that is not how I am built. I move into uncertainty. I look at what frightens me. I stare at it. Sometimes I obsess with it. I move into it. I do my best to take control of it. This is my job. This is why I am here.
How it all goes, I have no idea. I will, however, fight to my last idea, and my last word, and my last bit of resistance.
Maybe it will all work out, magically. But that sort of magic I place very little faith in. Most of the time, if something looks fucked up, it is. I don’t know how we survive all this. I only know that we have to try.