Robotic Singularity

I have some ammo for next class's discussion [should it have been class's or classes or class'? Grammar fail.]

So, I firmly believe humanity can create a being much (much) brighter than itself. As bright as a being can be.

Natural Selection is an algorithm. With a handful of simple, immutable rules, Natural Selection (NS from here forth) can create gorgeous, intuitively appealing designs that get the job done in half the time. Sale this Thursday! Every half-fucked sea-creature on the planet, every upside down, self-defeating idea since the birth of culture is the result of NS.

Here are the rules!

1. Heredity (i.e., the ability to pass traits on to offspring)
2. Reproduction (i.e., the ability to multiply and thereby increase population size)
3. Variation (i.e., differences in heritable traits that affect "Fitness" = the ability to survive and reproduce)

With these thr33 simple rules, vast rolling landscapes of charming (and terrifying) design work can be done, without anyone at the steering wheel.

This is the important part!

A "stupid" algorithm can produce something really smart and well designed, given enough time.

This is an important point to consider when discussing a stupid machine producing a mind smarter than humanity.

If we can set up a fluid, malleable framework where memes (an analogue of genes) have free reign in a "virtual" world, a type of "person" could emerge (again, given the right restraints). However, as a friend related in class, the human's biological computer has biological, hard wired limitations (for good reasons from the gene's perspective) to trim and prune, to stifle too much intellectual growth. Machines don't have to have that!

So long as we raise our computers right.