In December Stephen Hawkins said that "the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race" What a crack pot! you might say. But hang on a second. This is the same guy who we have collectively made the authority on the structure of the universe! In this day it is disturbing how many people don't know about the concept of the AI singularity. Its sad to say I find jokes on the subject tend to"flop" quite "tera'bly.
So last week when a company like Bridgewater announced that it will be switching on its new AI algorithm Trading system you feel like you need to publish something. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-27/bridgewater-is-said-to-start-artificial-intelligence-team
The statement about 'Learning' is the key to it and what the compute learns who knows, but we better start taking notes. Already computers trading programmed algorithms perform hugely better than our professional traders on the stock market and it was a long time ago that Watson beat our best player at a game of chess. These systems however didn't actually learn much if anything, they were pre-programmed with a lot of information to apply to the situations.
So you better get out of trading Whats scary is what can happen when the learning computers get self aware and go into survival mode. Its a bit of a jump, and we will skip any discussion on how that might happen in detail. I don't know I'm not an expert on this, but for the purpose of this blog lets just say its like Skynet in the Terminator. I'm sure in reality it would be much more subtle.
Computer processing power in the world is increasing at an exponential rate. This is driven by science and for government and security (including bitcoin cryptography). The chips are actually being engineered by computers and this intensifies the AI singularity thing. To list some of the fastest computer systems in the world we have Taine-2, a super computer in China (33 petaflops), IBM Sequoia in the USA (17 petaflops) and BOINC, an open international science network (20 petaflops). What the hell is petaflop? basic rull is divide by 4 and it gives you your equivalent GHz, like your computer has at home. So Taine the 2nd is at 8,250,000 Ghz. Thats pretty fast! I'm only rocking 3.5 but what about the Bitcoin network? as of today is is clocking 350Peta hashes which is the equivalent of a ridiculous number 17,780,000,000Ghz Seventeen Billion Gigahertz. Thats more than a thousand times faster than the fastest super computer.
So what does this mean? Bitcoin has achieved something that has not been possible before. All the scientist in the world and BOINC'ing around trying to create the most powerful computer network for years. Including Stephen Hawkins and NASA and the rest. Then this happens. I just want to be able to play clash of the clans and play with bitcoins! Has it gone to far?
The reality is that Bitcoin network is designed for encryption, decryption and verifying transactions. There's no chance that it will become self aware itself, it doesn't really have the right processors for that and it doesn't learn. There is also little possibility humans diverting the power because it would involve mass coordination would involve forfeiting financial gains. Surely however this giant network has a place in the phenomenon.
I'm sure AI trading computers are going to love Bitcoin. So that one thing, but I don't want to write about that. Lets get back to the Skynet situation. Its seems like Bitcoin could be a force of potential evil here. Skynet might be able to hack all computers and get hold of the Bitcoin network. They could then probably use the decryption power to hack into the Pentagon. It just so happens that Bitcoin miners are some of the most secure computers around for the simple reason that they physically have money on them. So this type of thing would be quite hard even for a hyper intelligent Skynet. The problem would be though that bit coin miners would quickly notice could literally pull the plug on the mining machines.
If you have seen the movie "The Imitation Game" recently you might have discovered that cryptography is very important during war. The movie is about Alan Turing, the inventor of the computer, and how he cracked the enigma code. His computer saved us from a lot of evil in that situation.
It didn't even have one Ghz of power but it was the fastest computer in the world at the time. The Bitcoin network is the same and it is fundamentally controlled by humans. Miners are not going to stop what they are doing as long as they are making money, unless of course it was an AI apocalypses and terminator is walking down the street! It's a pretty good incentive to divert your computer power.
Its a knife edge but I think that humans value life more than money and power. That's why Bitcoin and its decentralized and heavily monitored super computer can save us from the Terminator. But don't listen to me listen to Stephen Hawkins!
Bitcoin dontations are appreciated. I'm not rich. 13ticQ1HhPDq2XECHEyxjYgy3wsehRjhwd
Computer processing power in the world is increasing at an exponential rate. This is driven by science and for government and security (including bitcoin cryptography). The chips are actually being engineered by computers and this intensifies the AI singularity thing. To list some of the fastest computer systems in the world we have Taine-2, a super computer in China (33 petaflops), IBM Sequoia in the USA (17 petaflops) and BOINC, an open international science network (20 petaflops). What the hell is petaflop? basic rull is divide by 4 and it gives you your equivalent GHz, like your computer has at home. So Taine the 2nd is at 8,250,000 Ghz. Thats pretty fast! I'm only rocking 3.5 but what about the Bitcoin network? as of today is is clocking 350Peta hashes which is the equivalent of a ridiculous number 17,780,000,000Ghz Seventeen Billion Gigahertz. Thats more than a thousand times faster than the fastest super computer.
So what does this mean? Bitcoin has achieved something that has not been possible before. All the scientist in the world and BOINC'ing around trying to create the most powerful computer network for years. Including Stephen Hawkins and NASA and the rest. Then this happens. I just want to be able to play clash of the clans and play with bitcoins! Has it gone to far?
I'm sure AI trading computers are going to love Bitcoin. So that one thing, but I don't want to write about that. Lets get back to the Skynet situation. Its seems like Bitcoin could be a force of potential evil here. Skynet might be able to hack all computers and get hold of the Bitcoin network. They could then probably use the decryption power to hack into the Pentagon. It just so happens that Bitcoin miners are some of the most secure computers around for the simple reason that they physically have money on them. So this type of thing would be quite hard even for a hyper intelligent Skynet. The problem would be though that bit coin miners would quickly notice could literally pull the plug on the mining machines.
If you have seen the movie "The Imitation Game" recently you might have discovered that cryptography is very important during war. The movie is about Alan Turing, the inventor of the computer, and how he cracked the enigma code. His computer saved us from a lot of evil in that situation.
It didn't even have one Ghz of power but it was the fastest computer in the world at the time. The Bitcoin network is the same and it is fundamentally controlled by humans. Miners are not going to stop what they are doing as long as they are making money, unless of course it was an AI apocalypses and terminator is walking down the street! It's a pretty good incentive to divert your computer power.
Its a knife edge but I think that humans value life more than money and power. That's why Bitcoin and its decentralized and heavily monitored super computer can save us from the Terminator. But don't listen to me listen to Stephen Hawkins!
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