[FDE] Commentary on "Is Science Near Its Limits?" Conference

[Crispin Cowan]

SafeBoot Simon wrote:
> I long for the day I don't have to work for a living, and can spend my
> time theorizing and teaching snowboarding. It's true, that eventually
> we may build, or indirectly cause to be built a machine which doesn't
> "need us" in their world anymore, but just because it has no direct
> use for mankind, doesn't make mankind generally useless - we'll I
> guess just carry on doing our own thing, much like most "lesser" forms
> of life already do ;-)
>   
Computers are consistently better at analytical things than at more
subjective things. In human society, subjective things tend to be what
we call "art" (as distinct from science & engineering) such as painting,
dance, music, movies, snowboarding, etc.

So for our long term survival, it is important that the intelligent
machines that emerge have an appreciation for art, but not much ability.
Kind of like nerds are now :)

Intriguing that the FDE list has a side line in philosophy chat.

Crispin

-- 
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.               http://crispincowan.com/~crispin
CEO, Mercenary Linux		   http://mercenarylinux.com/
	       Itanium. Vista. GPLv3. Complexity at work