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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
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Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 23:47:14 GMT
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In article <39riaj$82k@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu> hpm@cs.cmu.edu writes:
>sean@mpi-sb.mpg.de (Sean Matthews) whines:
>>My characterization of Minsky's article was certainly hostile (which
>>I admitted, and make no apologies for), but also fair; I don't think I
>>was intellectually dishonest in summarizing the article as saying that in
>>the future humanity is going to change into super intelligent robots
>
>Of the two hypotheses: 
>
>1) that human bodies and brains will remain unchanged into the far future
>
>2) that humanity will apply to itself the technological
>   tricks it is learning to shape the external world
>
>the first is ludicrously improbable, and would require a revolutionary
>alteration in the way things are done, given that every possible
>medical and prosthetic trick is right now being applied as soon as it
>is developed enough to do even a little more good than harm.
>
>Marvin was simply outlining the conservative alternative.

A number of different changes are possible.  Marvin Minsky's
article didn't pick the most conservative possibility among
them.

>Unconscious beliefs and attitudes left over from a past time, when
>change was nearly imperceptible on the scale of a lifetime, cause some
>people to reject the overwhelming evidence for the changes underway.
>A tribal defense instinct protecting traditional beliefs and values
>amplifies this resistance to change into vehement, emotional attacks
>such as Seans.

Are you serious, or just having some debating fun?

>Chill out, put down your club, and put your brain in gear instead.

(BTW, I have no objection to speculative articles such as Minsky's;
but the idea that Sean must be in the grip of stone-age thinking seems
rather uncalled for to me.)

-- jd





