Oh yeah, I can definitely see that. But I knew going in that it was a
historic walk-through rather than pie-in-the-sky futurism.
George dropped me a note a few weeks after my FoRK post (he was
ego-surfing), and I asked him if he had read "Out of Control" (Kevin Kelly).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0201483408/forkrecommendedrA/
It turns out that he and Kevin had the same editor, and that both books
were written more or less simultaneously. He thought the books contrasted
each other well - his, a look back, and Kevin's, a look at the
current/future (though I still haven't finished it).
But I notice it's still online at;
http://www.absolutvodka.com/kelly/5-0.html, part of a larger Kevin Kelly
forum, http://www.absolutvodka.com/kelly/1-1.html
>The problem of the major premise (evolution causing artificial
>intelligence), as I see it, is that selection pressure doesn't necessarily
>mean selection for intelligence. We like to believe, as humans, that
>intelligence is the pinnacle of evolution and therefore the primary goal,
>but it doesn't seem to be true: "survival" can be due to many other factors
>besides intelligence. Selective pressure is applied to computers and
>networks to make them more useful to us, not more intelligent.
Tell ya what Lisa. You bring me a living non-organic machine, and then
we'll chat about how intelligent it is. Deal? 8-)
I thought Dyson was speaking more on artificial *life*, not artificial
intelligence per se.
>You might want to borrow it from a library since it's more of an interesting
>read than a reference to keep around.
Certainly, but book shelves filled with reference material look kinda dry
(and for good reason).
MB
-- Mark Baker. CTO, Beduin Communications Corp Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA http://www.beduin.com