[FRIAM] what is Gertrude thinking?

[Steve Smith]

Marcus/Jon/MotherChurchers -
> Do you believe him?

I believe that what he is demonstrating is a roughly accurate 
presentation of what NL has achieved to date.

Am I astounded by:

 1. How much progress has been made in the field in my life
 2. How casual Musk and his fanbois/goils are about this
 3. How Musk implies that the (truly significant) level of thoughtful
    safety required for Tesla cars is similar to what is required here.

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.

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?

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?"

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 ...

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.

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".

Pedal to the metal!

 - Steve

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