Imagining the future of Google

Ran across this article:

http://money.cnn.com...68125/index.htm

Of which Ray Kurzweil had a part in helping with. The most relevant is "Scenario 4". Do any of you guys think that it is plausible that Google does this type of thing?


Also, it reminded me of this, which I saw awhile back. "The Google Robot FAQ" done in the style of other Google FAQs, a little funny, a little scary:

http://blog.outer-co...om/googlerobot/

Holy crap!

1) Interviews with Ray Kurzweil, author of "The Singularity Is Near," 2005, and with Eliezer Yudkowsky, director of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence


Since when did CNN talk about the Singularity?

The most relevant is "Scenario 4". Do any of you guys think that it is plausible that Google does this type of thing?

If we coupled our minds too closely with the Internet, without adequate firewalls, this could add a whole new sense of meaning to the expression "pick somebody's brains"!

More likely, with Google, they'd create virtual "entertainment parks" that would outdraw Disneyland, so that a lot of uploaded people would "go in and never come out". The only question is, "how would they manage to pay for it?"

Maybe, in essence, they'd "sell their souls"? (That almost sounds a little sick, doesn't it!)

Whatever the answer, it would probably cause the value of the stock to continue to rise.

boundlesslife

 
The only question is, "how would they manage to pay for it?"

Probably sell ad space in your brain to advertisers. All of a sudden, you have an overwhelming desire to go to Wal-Mart.

Maybe, in essence, they'd "sell their souls"?

Hahahaha... man that's funny.

I think people would probably be downloading new souls using bit torrent so Google might run into some problems there.

I think people would probably be downloading new souls using bit torrent so Google might run into some problems there.

There's probably a serious side to that.

Since so many personality factors are influenced by the genome (which I've suggested, on some religious boards, may be all that you have in the way of a 'soul' anyway), the 'quick-fix' while we're waiting for reverse transcription to introduce genome-fixes may be to "rewire your neurocortex" slightly, introducing the minor differences of hard-wiring that alternate alleles would have provided, to get the "upgrade" right away.

In fact, even with reverse transcription, that kind of "patch" may be necessary anyway. Just changing the genome won't necessarily cause it to express itself in terms of the developmental structures that took place as the neocortex or other parts of the brain developed.

Hmmm. You might not need to even alter the genome, unless you wanted to pass the fix on to progeny, or unless failure to do this could lead to "neural reversion" gradually.

So, after you post your genome with Google, to obtain feedback, you begin getting notices almost every day that a new "fix" has been found, and being offered an opportunity to "download" it.

If you click the correct response with your "virtual mouse", you see a note in the corner of your on-board display that the download is complete and installation is in progress, and moments later you "feel better", "feel energized", "feel cut-loose", or whatever???

That really sounds crazy, doesn't it? But not so long ago it sounded crazy to talk about Man "walking on the Moon", too? And, who would have believed such a thing as "pocket calculators" would suddenly be developed, so recently as just fifty years ago?

(Just about fifty years ago, I was taking a graduate course in "Nuclear Reactor Design", using slide rules and yellow legal pads to keep track of the calculation in figuring out core diameter and moderator shell thickness. It took a half-dozen sheets of paper to do the problem, and if you got the right answer to within a half-inch, that got you a "passing grade" on the homework.)

(If, at that time, someone had suggested that fifty years later, I'd be using "start blockquote" and "end blockquote" HTML to do subparagraphs on an "Internet forum", I'd have wondered if they might have climbed out of a flying saucer.)

boundlesslife

What about virus writers?

Or spyware?

Someone writes some malicious code, and all of a sudden 200,000 people attack the White House because they were infected...or spyware that keeps track of everywhere you eat, everything you buy, etc. just to provide advertisers with directed advertising tailored to you.

Ok, so that may be far fetched, but my point is, hopefully, that people will put in some safeguards as this type of technology is (possibly) developed.