To be precise this is SCIENCE v RELIGION 15 years ago you had a philosopher/pseudo scientist: Eric Drexler (today Boatrom) leading Nanotech hype. He influenced then tech elite Bill Joy (today Elon) who imagined "grey goo" taking over Meanwhile the scientists got to work.https://twitter.com/wolfejosh/status/985610189670936576 …
-
Show this thread
-
*Bostrom
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
Replying to @wolfejosh
There are good arguments to be made against Drexler and Bostrom's respective visions. Credentialism & trying to divide people into "scientists" and "non" is, unfortunately, an extremely weak argument.
1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes -
Replying to @michael_nielsen
Michio Kaku is a "scientist" but most of his ideas are fanciful fictions. Thought experiments are absolutely critical to conjuring hypotheses but "scientists" qualify and temper hypotheses and are not sensationalist alarmist or aggrandizing without evidence
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @wolfejosh
I've been a full-time research scientist almost my whole career. Productive scientists are all over the map in comfort with speculation. I. J. Good was an excellent scientist who was also comfortable with speculation, thus superintelligence (Bostrom is riffing off Good).
2 replies 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @michael_nielsen
Speculation is not just OK it is NECESSARY. But if it is untestable it is not science Eg. I believe the greatest threats to humanity is runaway perfume molecules. Synthetically produced, held captive, bottled. When released at a critical mass over time they will self organize...
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
Replying to @wolfejosh
Lots of ideas go from speculative to being testable. Wish I had a dollar for every physicist who told me in the 90s that quantum computers were ridiculous fiction. It's clear now they were all wrong. We may do a similar test for superintelligence. Pointing out that it's
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
not possible to test now is just not terribly interesting.
-
-
Replying to @michael_nielsen
To be clear my starting distinction was about scientific v religious thinking. and was in response to your suggestion that the use, or loaded valence, of those terms was not helpful or set up a false dichotomy or uneceasarily debased a thinker based on their credentials
0 replies 0 retweets 1 likeThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.