I've just subscribed to the list a week ago. Good to see some deep thoughts.

In my opinion evolution happens on many different layers. It started with
the DNS, but only requires a replicator which produces near perfect copies
in large numbers. Emphasis on near and large. Since we are speaking, new
stuff started to spread, replicate, modify. We can call them memes, but they
are also layered and evolving. We are so deep under/inside them that seeing
their working requires great effort and will. Church, politics, culture,
ethics, fashion, telecom, Facebook (maybe open source licenses ;) all uses
us humans for their replication and survival. Without any other reason or
aim.

I'm afraid the 'superintelligence' predicted by the technological
singularity theory won't come as a highly intelligent, speaking,
self-designing computer. Any replicator which uses groups of humans for its
purposes should count as a superinelligence. Because they are the products
of evolution there is no guarantee that they are really intelligent, or more
intelligent than their survival requires them to be. Some of them might grow
very large, using lots of resources from their human actuators. But they are
all under the control of the evolutionary algorithm, which also means most
of them won't survive. And their extinction will pretty much affect their
actuators on all level, down to humans or even DNS.

What shall we do in this situation? We certainly need thinking, independent
individuals. We can also concentrate our efforts and engineer new solutions.
(I willfully use the term engineer instead of design or anything else.) This
kind of work is not more than giving a certain direction to the trials and
errors of the evolutionary process. Not the whole thing, just something
smaller around us that we can have an effect on (like anonymity on the net,
a new payment system, or just a new bike shed). There is no guarantee the
product will be good or survive, but at least we can learn from its
creation, working, behavior, effects, and change directions consciously.
This is the procedure humanity used successfully in the past, and this is
the way of thinking that is in danger today. Individual thinkers are the
enemies of the superintelligence.

Let's get many more engineers on board!

-----Original Message-----
From: unsystem-bounces@???
[mailto:unsystem-bounces@lists.dyne.org] On Behalf Of Amir Taaki
Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2013 8:00 AM
To: unsystem@???
Subject: [unSYSTEM] Our age of the algorithm: victims of success?

"When we use tools, they use us back."

The early cyberspace was a land of chaos. A new land laid unexplored,
awaiting the ventures of those who dare to dream. From this primordial soup
that the exchange of knowledge became the early ingredients that started to
establish the architecture for this new realm of pure technology. That
architecture is the algorithm.

Born in the labs of cyberspace, the 21st century has birthed a new
organism: the algorithm. Raised by collective stewardship, algorithms are
ideas so powerful that they shape the formation of culture itself.
Algorithms are the physical manifestation of the one true universal language
of the cosmos: mathematics.

Only now is man starting to unlock the secrets of the universe's source.
For centuries, millions of lives have been devoted to a single minded
pursuit at reading, decompiling and making sense of our universe's dense
fabric. We are far from even grasping the complete picture of even the
smallest detail.

And yet, that detail is smashing our world to pieces. Rushing at a the speed
of light, we are quickly approaching the singularity. We are rapidly
approaching the point of no return. Hold onto your seats. Things are never
going to be quite the same.

And remember: history has a way of repeating itself.


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