Indeed! And what about the 7th phase shift? I must be missing something here. We're pointing to just two particular transitions in all of human history. I fear we're calling them "phase shifts" to convince ourselves that there is a simple underlying phenomenon which has law-ordained "phases". How can we assume that there will be a coherent series of N>2 such "phase shifts"? How can we assume that they will follow some simple mathematical function with just a handful of parameters?
I guess this makes me even more of a singularity skeptic than Hanson. He marshals powerful economic arguments against naive singularitarianism. But then he forecasts a similarly epochal transition to whole-brain emulations,... (read more)
Indeed! And what about the 7th phase shift? I must be missing something here. We're pointing to just two particular transitions in all of human history. I fear we're calling them "phase shifts" to convince ourselves that there is a simple underlying phenomenon which has law-ordained "phases". How can we assume that there will be a coherent series of N>2 such "phase shifts"? How can we assume that they will follow some simple mathematical function with just a handful of parameters?
I guess this makes me even more of a singularity skeptic than Hanson. He marshals powerful economic arguments against naive singularitarianism. But then he forecasts a similarly epochal transition to whole-brain emulations,... (read more)