NPR had a piece yesterday on the idea that machines may one day be so intelligent as to become capable of designing and building even more intellingent machines, triggering a exponential growth of intelligence, an intelligence sigularity, such that human intelligence becomes negligible by comparison. Some consider this intelligence sigularity a existential threat.
The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, in an interview with BBC while out on bail pending possible extradition to Sweden concerning sexual assault without a condom charges, had this to say concerning his persumably unrelated mission with Wikileaks:
The attached file is an article by Bill Joy on his concerns about modern technology. Read the article, but the main point seems to me that modern technology is too complex to manage and very likely presents threats to man which exceed the benefits. Possibly we can learn to manage the technology, possibly not.
I lean toward Mr. Joy's views, perhaps more so. Even if you don't share his concern you might benefit by being aware of them.
Conceding that 'Freewill' is a poorly defined concept, there is still some sense that we are free to make some choices and not so free to make others. Most would agree that we are free to choose vanilla vs. chocolate ice cream, while we are not free to choose to be invisible. Which is to say that some things appear to be impossilbe, regardless of what we wish them to be. While in other cases we are in some sense 'free' to make a choice.
But consider the apparent choice of ice cream flavor. Walk into a shop and look at all the options. What actually happens in your head when you make a choice? WIth various degress of concious calculation, we run through what we want. I've had vanilla before and I like it. Butter pecan I hate, and while I like chocolate I get a reaction. I've never had toffee, but people tell me it is good and I'm a bit bored so perhaps I'll try that.
Charity from those who believe in afterlife rewards must be greeted with some suspicion because such persons can never be entirely free of the idea that they will be rewarded for their actions, if not in life then in death. No one can be sure, least of all the believers themselves, if their actions, no matter how charitable, are in fact selfishly designed to improve their own lot in the afterlife.
The genuine athiest, however, at least has the possibility of performing an act they believe can do themselves no good at all.
To be sure, athiests are pefectly capable of selfishness. But unlike their believer breathren, they might from time to time do something genuinely altruistic.
