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What if the singularity already happened? How would we know? It’s unfalsifiable unmeasurable woo-woo. The singularity and AGI are apocalypse for atheists.

TelmoMenezes 7y ago
> It’s unfalsifiable unmeasurable woo-woo. An hypothesis that cannot be falsified does not count as a scientific theory (according to Popper, not everyone agrees). That does not mean that is woo. It just means that it's outside the epistemological limits of science. Another thing that is unmeasurable is science, and yet most people don't doubt it. > The singularity and AGI are apocalypse for atheists. I agree with that to a degree.
the_af 7y ago
Agreed. There is a really funny article by idlewords (who also regularly comments here) about this: https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm Not only is the Singularity religion for atheists, it also sparked tremendously bizarre offshoot beliefs, like that "Roko's Basilisk" meme that the "Eliezer Yudkowsky" crowd was briefly obsessed with.
- burnte 7y ago
  "Not only is the Singularity religion for atheists" I also don't understand this statement. I asked the parent about why the singularity and AGI are "the apocalypse" for atheists, but I also don't follow the logic of this statement. Granted, I don't think there will ever be a "singularity", but I fail to see how it is in any way linked to atheism. Maybe a small subset of people, like you said, a "bizarre offshoot".
  - the_af 7y ago
    Ah, yes. Sorry, I'm an atheist myself and I can see how my sentence could be misconstrued. Let me rephrase: there's a bunch of Silicon Valley technologists and like-minded people, who consider themselves enlightened atheists, and who have fallen prey to a different kind of religion: an apocalyptic tech-religion with a set of distinct beliefs such as the Coming of the Singularity, the Evil AI, the Upload Your Mind to the Cloud and Live Forever cult, etc. Not everyone believes in the same subset, and not everyone believes in the more bizarre of these beliefs. As an atheist myself, I definitely didn't mean that all or even the majority of atheists will fall for this. I meant that a specific subset of tech-minded, nerd, and likely well-to-do atheists tend to fall for these techno-religions. It's a "religion for atheists" because it's a religion that tries to hide the trappings of a more traditional religion, for people who presumably reject them and who don't consider themselves open to new age pseudoscience either. But tell me it's not cute how Ray Kurzweil has faith in reaching immortality (salvation) in his own lifetime.
    - burnte 7y ago
      Thanks for the explanation. I agree there's a small group of virtual-theists like Kurzweil, he's been a bit off kilter for many, many years. I'd love to upload my mind into VR when my meatbag expires, but the chances of that happening in my life are near zero, and not much better for brain uploading in general, IMO.
ben_w 7y ago
There are several different types each of which has its own testable predictions. I can’t play the linked video, but given this is Vernor Vinge, the prediction would be “a computer which is just as good at designing chips as a human, so when Moore’s law doubles its speed, it now takes half as long to reach the next double-performance design”.
burnte 7y ago
> The singularity and AGI are apocalypse for atheists. I don't follow the logic of this statement. I'm an atheist, and while I don't believe there will ever be any "singularity", I also don't understand how the impacts of AGI would be different for theists versus non-theists. Could you explain?
- chr1 7y ago
  The logic is that people have always found ideas about the end of world, heaven, salvation, immortality, enticing. Singularity predicts analogs of these things in a manner that is compatible with atheism, so some atheists believe there will be singularity soon, for the same reasons some religious people believe the end of the world is near. I don't think that the above is good enough reason to dismiss the whole idea of singularity, but it is a good explanation why more people tend to predict singularity, instead of "viscosity" where improvements become harder and harder to do and AGI is needed to simply keep the same pace.
  - burnte 7y ago
    Ahh, ok. Thanks.
deleted 7y ago
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TelmoMenezes 7y ago

> It’s unfalsifiable unmeasurable woo-woo. An hypothesis that cannot be falsified does not count as a scientific theory (according to Popper, not everyone agrees). That does not mean that is woo. It just means that it's outside the epistemological limits of science. Another thing that is unmeasurable is science, and yet most people don't doubt it. > The singularity and AGI are apocalypse for atheists. I agree with that to a degree.

the_af 7y ago

Agreed. There is a really funny article by idlewords (who also regularly comments here) about this: https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm Not only is the Singularity religion for atheists, it also sparked tremendously bizarre offshoot beliefs, like that "Roko's Basilisk" meme that the "Eliezer Yudkowsky" crowd was briefly obsessed with.

burnte 7y ago
"Not only is the Singularity religion for atheists" I also don't understand this statement. I asked the parent about why the singularity and AGI are "the apocalypse" for atheists, but I also don't follow the logic of this statement. Granted, I don't think there will ever be a "singularity", but I fail to see how it is in any way linked to atheism. Maybe a small subset of people, like you said, a "bizarre offshoot".
- the_af 7y ago
  Ah, yes. Sorry, I'm an atheist myself and I can see how my sentence could be misconstrued. Let me rephrase: there's a bunch of Silicon Valley technologists and like-minded people, who consider themselves enlightened atheists, and who have fallen prey to a different kind of religion: an apocalyptic tech-religion with a set of distinct beliefs such as the Coming of the Singularity, the Evil AI, the Upload Your Mind to the Cloud and Live Forever cult, etc. Not everyone believes in the same subset, and not everyone believes in the more bizarre of these beliefs. As an atheist myself, I definitely didn't mean that all or even the majority of atheists will fall for this. I meant that a specific subset of tech-minded, nerd, and likely well-to-do atheists tend to fall for these techno-religions. It's a "religion for atheists" because it's a religion that tries to hide the trappings of a more traditional religion, for people who presumably reject them and who don't consider themselves open to new age pseudoscience either. But tell me it's not cute how Ray Kurzweil has faith in reaching immortality (salvation) in his own lifetime.
  - burnte 7y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. I agree there's a small group of virtual-theists like Kurzweil, he's been a bit off kilter for many, many years. I'd love to upload my mind into VR when my meatbag expires, but the chances of that happening in my life are near zero, and not much better for brain uploading in general, IMO.

ben_w 7y ago

There are several different types each of which has its own testable predictions. I can’t play the linked video, but given this is Vernor Vinge, the prediction would be “a computer which is just as good at designing chips as a human, so when Moore’s law doubles its speed, it now takes half as long to reach the next double-performance design”.

burnte 7y ago

> The singularity and AGI are apocalypse for atheists. I don't follow the logic of this statement. I'm an atheist, and while I don't believe there will ever be any "singularity", I also don't understand how the impacts of AGI would be different for theists versus non-theists. Could you explain?

chr1 7y ago
The logic is that people have always found ideas about the end of world, heaven, salvation, immortality, enticing. Singularity predicts analogs of these things in a manner that is compatible with atheism, so some atheists believe there will be singularity soon, for the same reasons some religious people believe the end of the world is near. I don't think that the above is good enough reason to dismiss the whole idea of singularity, but it is a good explanation why more people tend to predict singularity, instead of "viscosity" where improvements become harder and harder to do and AGI is needed to simply keep the same pace.
- burnte 7y ago
  Ahh, ok. Thanks.

deleted 7y ago

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