“Consider a brain—with as many neurons as stars in the galaxy linked together through trillions of connections it’s the most complex object in the known universe. Try to compress it. Call it by just two words. Call it Martin Guerre. Push further. A single word, a single letter.
Call it “I.”
Or.. I AM?
“The Universe, like the organisms that reside within it, is a mortal entity. Born in the Big Bang, it will eventually meet its fate through an equally cataclysmic process, whether it be in the form of a Big Rip, a Big Crunch, or an eternal deep freeze. Regardless, all life as we know it will be extinguished.
Unless, of course, our highly advanced offspring can find a way to escape the confines of the cosmos—or more radically, change the rules of the cosmological game.”
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/doomsday-invention-artificial-intelligence-nick-bostrom
“If scientific- and technological-development efforts do not effectively cease, then all important basic capabilities that could be obtained through some possible technology will be obtained.” In light of this, he suspects that the farther into the future one looks the less likely it seems that life will continue as it is. He favors the far ends of possibility: humanity becomes transcendent or it perishes.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/we-must-destroy-nukes-before-an-artificial-intelligence-learns-to-use-them
Pretty grim view of AI.
It only takes a small leap of imagination for most people to see that some form of superintelligence is inevitable eventually. Some see this as an advanced civilization on another remote planet, for others it’s a “smart” toaster that decides it’s had enough of humanity. Regardless, if you look at just how quickly humans have gone from living in caves smashing each other’s heads with rocks to putting robots on distant plants.. it’s pretty mind blowing. Especially when you factor in the billions of years Earth has been here and even the Universe. Humanity hasn’t even been a blink. My point is this: If we’ve come this close to creating a self creating superintelligence in the incredibly short period of time since the invention of fire.. doesn’t it seem odd to think we are the first to make this happen? Considering the trillions of stars and now billions of potentially habitable planets out there surely some race of creature has managed to make some sort of inorganic being capable of improving itself and an near infinite rate. Because we know it’s possible, that means it’s probable. If it’s probable, given the time and number of planets, it’s inevitable. Even if it hasn’t happened yet, we could be in a superintelligence arms race with other beings out in the Universe somewhere. It would seem like it’s us or them. Someday we may have some being made out of who knows what show up and decide that it needs to fulfill it’s creator’s mandate, “We need more paperclips, you will all be paperclips”. It’s inevitable.
Why is it so easy for people to believe in advanced alien life but not God?