<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
Marcus/Jon/MotherChurchers -<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1598742620634-0.post@n2.nabble.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Do you believe him?</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I believe that what he is demonstrating is a roughly accurate
presentation of what NL has achieved to date.<br>
</p>
<p>Am I astounded by:</p>
<ol>
<li>How much progress has been made in the field in my life</li>
<li>How casual Musk and his fanbois/goils are about this</li>
<li>How Musk implies that the (truly significant) level of
thoughtful safety required for Tesla cars is similar to what is
required here.<br>
</li>
</ol>
<p>I know I often render here as a neo-luddite, and perhaps that is
what I am. I was raised on scientific progress and science
fiction and experienced a lot of engineering marvels coming to
fruit right in front of me. I have participated in and dreamed
of a wide range of human-experience-enhancement projects, both
professional and private, industrial and ad-hoc. My "inner
child" wants to live forever, have my physicality, my
intellectuality, and if possible, my spirituality enhanced in any
and every way it might be. That could mean various modes of
personal behaviour from diet to exercise/activity to meditation,
etc. Technologically it could be everything from chemistry to
electronic to computational to physical.</p>
<p>As I age (clumsily) it is easy for me to think of ways NL might
extend/improve my life. When I allow myself to fantasize I can
go *all over the place*. If I were younger and healthier I might
be *even more* jazzed at imaginings of *enhancing* myself, not
just mitigating losses. Driving a car or motorcycle (or flying a
plane) by "thought", extending my physiome more *directly* even
than those kinds of devices do is fairly simple/appealing.
Taking the functions currently mediated through computers with
screens/keyboards/mice, moble phones, fitness bands/rings, etc and
making them more transparent are appealing. I expect to be able
to listen to music/podcasts/audiobooks without earbuds long before
I can have a virtual Heads-Up display but I see both of those out
there on the horizon. Variations on telepresent robotics seem
like excellent fusions of many of these features. Seems like I
might be living instead of dreaming my orbital mechanics as a
telepresent-waldo-spaceship is my proxy (yes, comm lags are big
issues, but there *are* ways to mitigate and work around some of
that) And it goes on and on and on from there. The sky is (not)
the limit?</p>
<p>The biggest problem with/challenge to all of this in MY opinion
is the one the Amish apparently ask themselves when they are
considering whether to adopt a new (to them) technology: "who do
I become when I have this technology?"</p>
<p>I have already danced a little above with some of the "things I
could do, and implied that i could be" with this technology and on
the surface, it seems like mostly upside. At best, it looks
(like much of our current technology-of-personal-convenience) like
a mixed bag. I think many of us recognize that our discovery of
the energy that is embedded in fossil fuels and the myriad ways we
have learned to harness that energy has some unintended
consequences that *might* have us wanting to roll it all back and
proceed into our modern industrial revolution a bit more
thoughtfully (however one does that). Similarly, our widespread
adoption of digital computation/storage/communication technologies
might also fit that description. Most of us agree that "screen
time" is a challenge for most demographics... Some may feel that
"modern medicine" has become a significant "double-edged scalpel"
for us... and modern agri-industry... and ... and ...</p>
<p>This leads to the reality that even if I or you, or all of FriAM
resists this direction of development, or tries to overlay a
strong review and regulation on it, it is going to happen, it is
going to grow and spread. I recognize that simply being
*negative* about all progress rarely serves to help that progress
be more human/humane... if anything it pushes it into the darker
corners and it ends up emerging with kinks and twists from those
dark corners shaping it more than it needs to.</p>
<p>I'm ambi-valent on this technology... stoked at the
possibilities, but also very leery of unbridled optimism and
(ab)uses flying off in all directions at once (inevitable?).
This is another example of Kauffman's "Adjacent Possible" space
and bifurcation points. I don't *like* the dreams of Kurzweil
and other Singularians but I am believing that something
resembling it is more likely and Musk might be a significant
driver of that. I know he speaks cautionarily against General
AI, but I don't here him speak much about the (overwhelming?)
problems of myriad other "unintended/anticipated consequences".</p>
<p>Pedal to the metal!</p>
<p> - Steve<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1598742620634-0.post@n2.nabble.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
--
Sent from: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a>
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a>
archives: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a>
FRIAM-COMIC <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>