James Miller Discusses Aspects of the Singularity

 Singularity  

Adam Ford recently interviewed Singularity Rising author and economics professor James D. Miller.  Among the topics discussed were non-AI factors that may lead to the Singularity as well as economic issues of the intelligence explosion.

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ecently, James D. Miller, Associate Professor of Economics at Smith College and author of Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World, discussed the economics of the Singularity, or the point of time in which we'll either have computers that are smarter than people or we will have significantly increased human intelligence, with Adam Ford. [videos below]

According to Miller, brains are essentially organic computers, and, thus, applying Moore's Law suggests that we are moving towards Singularity. Since economic output is a product of the human brain, increased brainpower or the existence of computers smarter than humans could produce outputs we cannot even imagine.

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Miller's work focuses on the implications of a future society faced with an abundance of human and artificial intelligence. Miller reveals how natural selection has been increasing human intelligence over the past few thousand years and speculates on how intelligence enhancements will shape civilization over the next forty years.

As well as the development of artificial intelligence, Miller sees genetic engineering having a dramatic impact on the future of the intelligence explosion through enhanced human intelligence.  He feels that it will happen somewhere in the world (ie. China) even if such genetic enhancement is forbidden by the laws of nations. "Imagine what having a population of even 1% Einsteins and von Neumanns would mean."

Miller considers several possible scenarios in this coming Singularity:

• A merger of man and machine making society fantastically wealthy and nearly immortal
• Competition with billions of cheap AIs drive human wages to almost nothing while making investors rich
• Businesses rethink investment decisions to take into account an expected future period of intense creative destruction
• Inequality drops worldwide as technologies mitigate the cognitive cost of living in impoverished environments
• Drugs designed to fight Alzheimer's disease and keep soldiers alert on battlefields have the fortunate side effect of increasing all of their users’ IQs, which, in turn, adds a percentage points to worldwide economic growth

SOURCE  Adam Ford

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