Re: poly: The singleton hypothesis

>As we get closer to nanotech and superintelligence (either will
>quickly lead to the other), a race will begin to get there first. The
>winner of this race, the "leading force" in Drexler's terms, will
>obtain total power, because a singularity-like pace of development
>means that even a lead of a mere year or so will mean the difference
>between all the capabilities nanotechnology cum superintelligence
>will give and the lack of these capabilities.

I realize this claim seems like a consensus among certain groups,
but I still find it incredible, and share Curt's skepticism. If
tommorow Monsanto found it had a workable simple assembler (which
took 20 types of amino acids as inputs and could assemble any 3D array
of such amino acids up to 1mm^3), I don't think they could build a super
intelligence nor take over the world in a year. Nor could
they likely keep the design secret for very long. Now I admit
I haven't thought about this a great deal, so I might be persuaded
by a detailed enough scenario. But I'm suspicious I've not seen
such a scenario written up.

Given how close we are and have come to world government, however,
I do take seriously the possibility that all our solar system will
be under a single government. I don't, however, think it obvious
that a world goverment would be forever stable against rebellion,
breakup, or emigration.

>the leading force can achieve as much fierce competition and
>tooth-and-claw evolution as it likes, even without giving up its
>total power. It simply recreates its competitors as internal
>constructs.

You assume no interaction between your internal competitors and the
internal parts of the world goverment. Such interactions can
induce big costs to imposing and maintaining totalitarian control.

>One conseqence if the singleton hypothesis is correct is that Robin's
>game theoretic analysis of space colonization won't obtain. Game
>theory is only relevant if there are more than one player.

A world government would likely have many internal players, and game
theory is useful for modeling how such players interact.

Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614
Received on Sun Apr 26 21:47:08 1998