For the moment. But look at the growth curve.

And that was to create life, not consciousness. Spontaneously-created self-replicating viruses are much more likely to come about first. And then, well before the environment for spontaneous consciousness can come about, free-range virus-destroying bots will be set loose to make the “cloud” uninhabitable as an AI nursery.

Well, I don’t think my suggestion was that info life would skips several million evolutionary steps.

Philosophical question: If AI arrives spontaneously, is it really artificial?

Well, “artificial” is an arbitrary term. It will be non-bilogical. Call it what you like.

Less than the number of molecules in the primordial soup that life supposedly sprang from. A lot less. And that was to create life, not consciousness. Spontaneously-created self-replicating viruses are much more likely to come about first. And then, well before the environment for spontaneous consciousness can come about, free-range virus-destroying bots will be set loose to make the “cloud” uninhabitable as an AI nursery.

Philosophical question: If AI arrives spontaneously, is it really artificial?

The ideal delivery vector, of course, will be the Big Mac. We may be getting close – Taco Bell is now a diet program.

7. Compared to the technological explosion of the 1890s to the 1960s, we have leveled off; computers being the exception.

That’s a fairly large exception, don’t you think?

8. I’m siding with Anne with this one. AI creators are becoming more methodological (http://digg.com/d31Eac3) and the size of the primordial data soup would have to raised to the power of itself before there’s a chance of an “immaculate conception”.

Really? How many bits do you suppose are loose on the Internet right now? And at what rate is this number growing?

15. I bet we’ll find microbial life in the solar system before we find ET intelligent life.

Very likely. That is Crichton’s posit, as well.

This is nifty Sam, and here’s to you being around in 90 years to wrap it up.

The way things are going I have no interest in being around in 90 years. I want to die soon while the planet is still livable.

3. I’m as flummoxed as you that this hasn’t happened yet. I’m surprised al Quida hasn’t gone all New World Order crazy and taken out some Fortune 500 CEOs.

4. The problem is that the scientists will be constantly battling people’s extraordinary capacity to indulge in sloth. We have the technology now to increase average lifespan by 10+ years if people do that 20th century notion of a healthy diet, excersize, see your doctor about problems you have and do periodic screenings. Working with health care researchers, a lot of our time is spent trying to trick patients into doing these simple things, knowing that they would do more to save and improve lives than any pie-in-the-sky immortality vaccine. It’s like that old joke about trying to build something that’s idiot-proof. They will always build a better idiot.

6. Sadly, I think you’re right. I’m dreading what rule changes they’ll enact to make baseball more “relevant”.

7. Compared to the technological explosion of the 1890s to the 1960s, we have leveled off; computers being the exception.

8. I’m siding with Anne with this one. AI creators are becoming more methodological (http://digg.com/d31Eac3) and the size of the primordial data soup would have to raised to the power of itself before there’s a chance of an “immaculate conception”.

15. I bet we’ll find microbial life in the solar system before we find ET intelligent life.

18. Spot on in the first part. But I don’s see any good venues for the little guys to break out.

This is nifty Sam, and here’s to you being around in 90 years to wrap it up.