FQXi
fqxi.org
The past century in physics seems to lead in a surprising direction: away from physics as a description of objects and their interactions, and towards physics as a description of the evolution of information. Is this the correct way to think about physics and the physical world? What is information? What does the term “information” even mean? What role does information play in quantum gravity, cosmology, thermodynamics, life and consciousness, and what links does it provide between these areas?
FQXi’s international, interdisciplinary conference on the Physics of Information brought together leading researchers to discuss the significance, meaning, and uses of information in physics.
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That was intense. Lots of interesting information.
Awesome talk, but I disagree with the premise that designing Type II intelligences would be impossible. In fact, there are a few researchers that have already achieved this I can point out at least two of them. What scares me is that it is just a matter of time that the wrong people and corporations discover it too.
The next step for the development of Type II intelligences (we already know how to design them) is just a matter of making them scale. And that's what is really worrisome. I'm not sure if the world is ready for this. I don't think most people have the right values to take advantage of it. Most people will instead just want to profit from it.
An influential philosopher once said that nothing is more powerful than humans always one step ahead of the machine. In my humble opinion, when we give up this condition for profit and for other selfish interests, that will be the end of humanity as we know it.
"By evolution"? Once you begin designing machines, it's not evolution.