[rsch20]

I’ve read quite a bit about Peak Oil now, and as a rational being I accept both the premise, and it’s implications. Recent events have also put me in ‘high gear’ in terms of spreading awareness of the issue to my friends (who are generally as unresponsive as everyone else’s around here from what I’ve read) and beginning post-oil preparations.

In the same spirit of spreading awareness, I’d like to talk a little bit about Omega Point, also known as ‘The Singularity’. Before scoffing (or ignoring) this topic, remember the reactions you get when talking about Peak Oil.

Omega Point, like Peak Oil, is grounded in science. The fact that everyone here accepts Peak Oil indicates to me, that I am hopefully speaking to a rational, and open-minded group.


The principle of Omega Point, is quite simple, as easy and obvious (to me) as Peak Oil.

Schmidhuber's law states that the delays between successive radical breakthroughs in computer science decrease exponentially: each new one comes roughly twice as fast as the previous one

http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/computerhistory.html

If you read the above link, that’s it. That is what Omega Point is. A point in our very near future (by roughly 2040) where more technological advances will happen per second, than in our entire history so far.

Think of it as dividing by half, the closer you reach zero the smaller the increments become.

If you accept (or at least, don’t deny the possibility of) Omega Point, then ramifications are numerous and not nearly as clear as in Peak Oil.

http://www.aleph.se/Trans/ this is a website discussing ‘transhumanism’, it covers such topics as human uploads, superintelligent computers etc etc.

I don’t endorse any of the ideas on the above site, I list it as material that does help form thoughts and concepts on the subject.

A few of the ramifications of Omega Point are very clear though; super-AI seems to be a logical conclusion. It is debatable that AI can even be achieved. But Jurgen Shmidhuber (the writer of the law I’m talking about) certainly seems to think that it is.

http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ this is his website, most of his material is way above my head, but I do find it interesting reading. The guy is literally an Einstein.

It would seem to me, that for Shmidhubers law to happen, then AI is a requirement of it, as only intelligent computers would be able to make advancements on the scale of what we are looking at. At some time in the near future we will design intelligent machines, which will in turn design even more intelligent machines, and so on. (Another scenario that I find likely is the Internet ‘waking up’).

AI could easily spread as a virus once created as well in my opinion; an intelligent program would find the task of writing a self-replicating version of itself to spread across the Internet laughably easy.


Now that I’ve talked about the concept of Omega Point, what does it have to do with Peak Oil? Well they are both idea’s that suggest a major change in society, and if you accept BOTH of them, well we are in for interesting times.

If a major crash happens soon, it could certainly cause a delay in Omega Point, but progress will still continue, so denying it by saying Peak Oil will supercede it is not a solid argument in my opinion. It’s comparable to Peak Oil deniers not understanding that Peak Oil isn’t about running out of oil. It could be delayed by recession/depression/post-oil havoc. But there will still be people in places with electricity, and computers. So even if on a smaller scale progress will continue, probably fervently as progress also offers hope for Peak Oil.

So, after mulling both of these topics over in my head for a while (and bird flu, 9-11 conspiracy stuff etc. I discuss Peak Oil with my friends because it’s the ‘sanest’ topic I can broach =p ). Something occurred to me today.

If I were a brand new, super-intelligent being, which looked at this planet, what would my thoughts on humans be? If I was aware of Peak-Oil, and I’m super-intelligent so I AM aware of that and a billion other things. Then I would probably think about my survival and the future of super-intelligent beings in a world that is having its energy reserves consumed at an astounding rate, almost entirely for no good purpose.

I used to hold Omega Point as a thought of hope, that Omega Point might include us and be our next step of ‘evolution’. I still do hope that is the case, but after what occurred to me today I’m even more concerned about the ‘Terminator’ possibilities.

I would be very interested in any discussion on this topic; people that know about (and are intelligent enough to accept and consider the ramifications of) Peak Oil are rare, the same holds true for people that think about Omega Point (and some of them go a little more ‘nutty’ than even I think is healthy). I’m posting this in the hopes of encountering people that also find themselves assaulted by multiple concepts that are both rational and earth-shaking =p

I’ve read the other threads on this site about Mayan Calendar, John Titor, 9/11 etc. and I want to say that Omega Point is not a concept that should discredit Peak Oil with the ‘crazy by association’ gene. (Like those can, personally I consider the 9/11 stuff to be very likely, but that is a different topic). Omega Point is not a conspiracy, or possibly fictional. Like Peak Oil it is just a rational consequence of observing reality. I’ve read the threads about ‘judgment day’ and creationism etc as well. And like Peak Oil, Omega Point really doesn’t care whether you believe in God or not.

[jeffvail]

Joseph Tainter, in The Collapse of Complex Societies, makes a very convincing argument that the growth and intensification of hierarchy (what the Omega point is all about) is dependent on the continual increase in energy subsidy. In other words, not only do we need to KEEP our current level of energy availability, but in order to avoid collapse we need to continually INCREASE our levels of energy subsidy. So the concept of the Omega point seems quite valid, but I'd say that the "crunch" will come in a failure to increase energy subsidy before we ever get to a computer science Omega point...

[rsch20]

If society completely collapses, it certainly could put omega point down the crapper. a nuclear war for example would put quite a hurting on technological advancement.

however peak oil is not proven to cause a complete collapse in the next few years. it is SUPPPOSED that that might happen. a gradual recession is also possible. and we don't know for sure when Peak Oil is going to 'bite'. especially with governments covering up the situation.

computer science advancement will continue even in the face of a recession. so i don't consider your argument as 100% provably factual, a global recession could last quite a long time, at least theoretically more than ample time for Omega Point to be reached even if it starts this year (which it seems like it might).

and, if we do accept the premise that a Peak Oil collapse would absolutely negate Omega Point, then it just becomes a race of which comes first. Omega Point is still just as valid of a model as Peak Oil for that reason if nothing else.

[Auntie_Cipation]

For anyone interested in an enjoyable introduction to the topic, I highly recommend Peter Russell's "Waking Up In Time."

Waking Up In Time

My personal opinions about how things will play out are really undefined, but I definitely agree with the general principles and found the book enlightening as well as enjoyable.

[rsch20]

thanks for the link, I will certainly read that.

from reading the overview however, it seems to cover a wider topic than just Omega Point. it makes the case of evolution itself accelerating in the same method.

while I certainly agree with that premise. it was obvious to me after first reading about Omega Point. it is more deniable by people that don't accept evolution. like evolution it requires making judgements about things that happened far in the past.

Omega Point by itself, does not require that leap of logic. it is an observable effect from within the time-frame that humans have been able to observe. So much harder to refute.

I compare it to priming people with Hubberts Peak, before going into the full ramifications of Peak Oil.

[Ludi]

Sorry, I'm not really sure what this has to do with petroleum depletion.

I don't think you understand the theory of evolution, rsch20. I guess you're talking about evolution in some other sense.

[rsch20]

I think it is oil-depletion related, if the mods disagree they can certainly move it to another forum. I'm interested in possible ramifications of Peak Oil on Omega Point, and ramifications of Omega Point on Peak Oil.

the two subjects seem closely intertwined to me.

my understanding of evolution is the same as most other people that I'm aware of, and evolution has NOTHING to do with the topic at hand.

I mentioned evolution in response to another poster, and made no comments at all on what my idea of evolution is, why latch on to that? why make assumptions on what my concept of evolution is without even hearing a single thought from me on that subject?

Omega Point is not evolution (other than in a general sense that you can compare it to evolution), it is a model, nothing more.

anyway thanks for the ever so constructive feedback /sarcasm.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rsch20', '
')I used to hold Omega Point as a thought of hope, that Omega Point might include us and be our next step of ‘evolution’.

[rsch20]

a lack of rationality would be otherwise known as being 'irrational'. what about my post(s) is irrational?

I accept the premise that my own assesement of my rationality may be incorrect. perhaps you could point out the flaws in my logic.

mistrust me all you like, Omega Point is not my concept, my own level of trustworthiness is unrelated to whether or not the model is viable or accurate.

[FatherOfTwo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'Y')our response indicates a lack of rationality. I mistrust anyone who claims to be rational, because we cannot determine our own degree of rationality.

[rsch20]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FatherOfTwo', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'Y')our response indicates a lack of rationality. I mistrust anyone who claims to be rational, because we cannot determine our own degree of rationality.

[Ludi]

It seems to me irrational to respond to a person's remarks with sarcasm, when you may not understand the other person's point of view (or in my case, confusion) about the topic. You seem rather touchy. That's all.

You present yourself as a "rational" person, in a way which seems to imply that your rationality gives some validity to the idea of Omega Point. So your degree of "trustworthiness" is relevant to the topic. You aren't presenting it on its own merits, but at least partially on the merit of you being "rational" and the idea apparently according to you, being one to which "rational" people should give credence.

eta: Heh, I'm just giving you a hard time, because of this claim to being "rational."

[rsch20]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I')t seems to me irrational to respond to a person's remarks with sarcasm, when you may not understand the other person's point of view (or in my case, confusion) about the topic. You seem rather touchy. That's all.

You present yourself as a "rational" person, in a way which seems to imply that your rationality gives some validity to the idea of Omega Point. So your degree of "trustworthiness" is relevant to the topic. You aren't presenting it on its own merits, but at least partially on the merit of you being "rational" and the idea apparently according to you, being one to which "rational" people should give credence.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rsch20', '
')sarcasm is not an irrational construct. concluding someone is irrational because they are sarcastic is.... irrational.

[rsch20]

I take that to mean you concede the 'debate' to me.

I'm glad you enjoyed derailing my thread by forcing me to defend myself on silly trivial points, way to help our dire situation! (yes that was sarcasm again). thanks for doing your best to obstruct and confuse things. that's the exact spirit that is gonna save us. really.

[Ludi]

I don't personally see why super-AI or conscious machines are inevitable. It seems a leap of faith or imagination to me to believe so.

But I have no rational arguments to prove my position. We don't even understand human consciousness, or how the brain itself works.

[katkinkate]

If oil production peaks next year, or has peaked already, there may not be enough energy to reach an 'omega point'.

[rsch20]

ok, all previous nastiness aside. thanks for the actual constructive response.

I agree with you that we don't understand how the human brain works, however we don't need to understand how the human brain works, in order to create an artificial intelligence.

check the hompage of jurgen shmidhuber http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ read some of the articles like 'Optimal Ordered Problem Solver' 'Universal Learning Algorithms' and 'Recurrent Neural Networks' and you will see that no leap of faith or imagination is required for AI. the concepts that underlie it's possibility are already present.

here is a quote from the site.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')tate-of- the-art Artificial Recurrent Neural Networks. Most work in machine learning focuses on machines with reactive behavior. RNNs, however, are more general sequence processors inspired by human brains. They have adaptive feedback connections and are in principle as powerful as any computer. Until recently, however, RNNs could not learn to look far back into the past. But our novel RNN called "Long Short-Term Memory" (LSTM) overcomes the fundamental problems of traditional RNNs, and efficiently learns to solve many previously unlearnable tasks, including: Recognition of certain context sensitive languages; Reinforcement learning in partially observable environments; Metalearning of fast online learning algorithms; Music composition, Aspects of speech recognition.

[rsch20]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('katkinkate', 'I')f oil production peaks next year, or has peaked already, there may not be enough energy to reach an 'omega point'.

[fossil_fuel]

the potential implications of omega point scare me far more than peak oil.

perhaps it's a good thing that it will likely never happen due to PO and a variety of other factors.