Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: brucec@phoebus.labs.tek.com (Bruce Cohen;;50-662;LP=A;) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Down and Out in Nanoland Message-ID: Date: 4 Jan 91 04:33:50 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Tektronix Inc. Lines: 99 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article Hanson@charon.arc.nasa.gov (Robin Hanson) writes: > > "With nanotechnology, most people may be living near the edge of poverty" > > The rest of this message offers arguments for this outrageous claim, to > stimulate discussion. ... > > In the uploading age things get more complicated. Since uploaded minds > can be copied at fairly low cost, people can, if they so choose, > multiply much faster than the rate at which total wealth increases. I'll agree with this statement. You can always find some person to do anything, no matter what consequences the act may have. > No > doubt some people will so choose, and the average wealth per person copy > may drop dramatically, till most people copies are at the edge of > poverty. Here's where we part company. Just because some people may choose to make lots of copies of themselves, it doesn't follow that many will, or that those who don't will be seriously affected. A lot depends on the relative numbers, on the total wealth to be distributed, and on the way in which it is distributed. It also depends on the copyright laws. What I mean by this is that there may be regulation of the copying of true human personalities (as opposed to subpersonae or animae; I'll get to these later). For instance, there is an excellent chance that, assuming a continuing high rate of population increase, and no nanotech breakthrough (this is hypothetical, remember), many societies will attempt to control the dilution of wealth by requiring a prospective parent to get a license to have a child, said license demonstrating the ability of the parent to provide some minimum standard of living for the child. Given uploading, a similar form of regulation could protect potential copies. Why would a society install regulations like that? Precisely to prevent the kind of inflation you describe. > But there is the question of where the bulk of the wealth and economy > will be. It seems plausible to me that the economically most efficient > way to invest any given capital (i.e. resulting in the largest growth > rate as an investment), would be to put the bulk of it into making > copies. A single mind directing a billion dumb nanocray-diggers > wouldn't do as well at mining an asteroid as a thousand or million human > minds with half a billion such diggers. I think you are underestimating the potential of the technology. The economics of this example assume that some useful number of human minds, suitably embodied in silicon or some such, are cheaper than a half-billion diggers. But you really don't need the entire mind, not even very much of it; it's simpler to have a bunch of dumb processors minding the diggers, a smaller number of overseers monitoring them, and so on hierarchically to some small number of full humans. It's also cheaper, in terms of whatever hardware is embodying the minds and processors. And each processor is better suited to its job; less likely to get bored and make mistakes, or get angry and screw things up. But, you say, who programs these processors? Isn't it cheaper to use a human mind instead of an artificial program, which has to be built or purchased? True, but I don't have artificial programs in mind. Instead, I'm suggesting the use of portions of a human personality, Minsky's agents (what I called subpersonae above) and animal personalities or portions thereof (what I called animae [pun intended] above). I won't go into a lot of discussion of the possibilities here, I'll save that for a later posting. In the meantime, you'll find some speculations about reusing parts of animal and human personalities in Greg Bear's science-fiction novels "Eon" and "Eternity". I think there are significant economies in using smaller processing units than whole minds, the legal and ethical questions are not as knotty, and the problems of distributing wealth are far less nasty (unless, of course, you assume that each part has the legal status of a whole entity, which seems excessive to me). Another benefit is that if I copy some parts of myself into processors which I (or a copy of myself) is supervising, it's equivalent to spreading myself over the operation of the entire system. I could have a lot more confidence in the lower levels to handle problems in ways I understand and can react to then if the lower levels consist of (copies of) other people. > In the AI age, the economically dominant agents, be they human or not, > may be incrementally growable or reducible. Different humans copies > might be merged back together when one of them was about to go bankrupt, > and so not experience "dying". In general, though, I find it very hard > to project into this period. You could argue that I'm describing things which won't be possible until the AI age, but I think that far less is required of the technology to make copies of parts of personalities and have them communicate as if they were sepearate entities than to split and merge entire personalities as if they were components. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Speaker-to-managers, aka Bruce Cohen, Computer Research Lab email: brucec@tekchips.labs.tek.com Tektronix Laboratories, Tektronix, Inc. phone: (503)627-5241 M/S 50-662, P.O. Box 500, Beaverton, OR 97077