Götterdämmerung - Copyright © Bill Hibbard 2001

 

Götterdämmerung

Dawn of the Human-made Gods

7 April 2001 draft

Bill Hibbard

 

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1. Introduction

A Symmetry

Part I. Humans will Create Super-intelligent Machines

Chapter 2. The Basics of Machine Intelligence

Machine Consciousness

The Right Question About Consciousness

Emotional Intelligence

Overview

Chapter 3. Knowledge and Tools

Computers as Tools

Computers are Changing the Way People Live

The Near Term Future of Computers

The Advent of Intelligent Machines

Emotional Relationships with Intelligent Machines

Robots

Chapter 4. Arguments Against the Possibility of Machine Intelligence

Penrose's Argument from Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem

Searle's Chinese Room Argument

Dreyfus's Argument

Reasoning From Impossible Hypotheses

Chapter 5. Brain Science

Brain Models

Learning

Emotions

Brain Structure

Chapter 6. Dawn of the Gods

One Degree of Separation

A Higher Level of Consciousness

A God by Any Other Name

Life with God

The Omnis

Physical God

Student God

Evolving God

Mortal God

Genetic Manipulation

Emergent Mind?

Human Spiritual States of Consciousness

Rosy Scenario?

Part II. Super-intelligent Machines Must Love all Humans

Chapter 7. Good God, Bad God

Learning and Emotions Rather Than Laws

What is this Thing Called Love?

Mental Illness

Gods of War

Increasing Human Dependence

Privacy

Survival of the Fittest

One God or Many?

Society of Gods

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Human Moral Responsibility

Symbiosis

Chapter 8. Public Education and Control

Democracy

Public Education

Public Control

Economic Issues

Public Debate

Outlaws

Chapter 9. Visions of Machine Intelligence

Ray Kurzweil's Vision of Direct Brain Connections

Bill Joy's Warning

Neil Gershenfeld's Vision of Things that Think

Hans Moravec's Vision of Transcendent Minds

The Turing Chatterbox

James Martin's Vision of Alien Intelligence

The Global Brain Group

Chapter 10. Current and Future Human History

The End of History

The End of Science

The End of Nature

Frank Tipler's Vision of Immortality

Human Catastrophes

Chapter 11. The Ultimate Engineering Challenge

Failures

It's All About Us

Inventing God

Part III. Should Humans Become Super-intelligent Machines?

Chapter 12. Human Minds in Machine Brains

Mind Migration via Ray Kurweil's Nanobots

Hans Moravec's Exes

The Old Brain

Chapter 13. Humans Will Want to Become Super-Intelligent Machines

The Struggle for Recognition

The New "Great Equalizer"

Human Aspirations

Accelerating the Struggle

Human Immortality

A Better Life

A Cozy Heaven

The Dilemma

Chapter 14. Super-Intelligent Humans Must Love All Humans

Compatibility of Minds and Brains

Emotional Conversion

Public Policy

Buddha

Part IV. Conclusion

Chapter 15. Blasphemy

Götterdämmerung

African Chimpanzees Land on the Moon!

Chapter 16. Messages to the Future

A Message to Young People

A Message to the New Gods

Notes

Bibliography

Appendix

Mathematical Abstractions of Computers

Penrose's Argument


A postscript file of the entire book suitable for printing

A 2500 word summary of the book in a Computer Graphics VisFiles column

For related publications, see the SSEC Machine Intelligence Project.