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So Skynet/The Matrix are handy archetypes for ai utopianism. | So Skynet/The Matrix are handy archetypes for ai utopianism. | ||
===Stable=== | |||
Utopias are, within themselves, internally stable, equilibrium states. They don't develop: they are a (local) maximum optimum so any developments is logically a retrograde step. | |||
Partial utopia is at least vulnerable to attacks from outside, total utopia is not: it is necessarily an end state. This I think makes it a simple and not a complex system. It cannot reorganize itself to reveal a higher local maximum elsewhere. This also implies a degree of transcendental knowledge stop for estates to be stable, all participants in the state need to accept that it is optimal full stop in order to do that they must have some knowledge beyond the system itself or alternatively a means of engineering society white consensus in the absence of such knowledge comma for example faith. | |||
A utopia must be more than simply The aspiration for better than what we have now. | |||
===Partial utopia=== | ===Partial utopia=== | ||
There is a strain of utopianism which provides an ideal world only for a preferred segment of society. Indeed, Thomas Moore's original utopia was like this. | There is a strain of utopianism which provides an ideal world only for a preferred segment of society. Indeed, Thomas Moore's original utopia was like this. | ||
This kind of utopia at least solves the logical conundrum of being unable to appeal to everyone come up but strikes me as being a basic form of factionalism which can only really survive if the utopian group is dominant and therefore can oppress other groups. This doesn't feel particularly utopian to me, and his in any case still left with the conceptual problem that once the non-eutopian segment has been enslaved, repressed or destroyed then the section left will still have to deal with the imbalance of supply and demand and the regular differences of opinion that we can expect to rise up in any diverse community. | This kind of utopia at least solves the logical conundrum of being unable to appeal to everyone come up but strikes me as being a basic form of factionalism which can only really survive if the utopian group is dominant and therefore can oppress other groups. This doesn't feel particularly utopian to me, and his in any case still left with the conceptual problem that once the non-eutopian segment has been enslaved, repressed or destroyed then the section left will still have to deal with the imbalance of supply and demand and the regular differences of opinion that we can expect to rise up in any diverse community. | ||
===Path dependency and utopia=== | |||
We tend to imagine our utopia submitted with the accoutrements and mod cons of our non utopian existence. But does importing the imperfect gadgets of our here and now somehow taint the paradise? Is this like drugs and licentiousness in a holy afterlife? What did it say that devices forged to suit unsaintly tastes in times of imperfection have a row in heaven? Could that have evolved otherwise? Perhaps the accretive convergence on virtue answers this. | |||
===Diversity and utopia=== | ===Diversity and utopia=== | ||
Oddly, any kind of diversity which, at first impression, you might think would be a necessary condition for youtopia is in fact in the inimical to it. Utopia requires as a minimum a complete consensus as to the conditions of utopia which is anything but diverse. | Oddly, any kind of diversity which, at first impression, you might think would be a necessary condition for youtopia is in fact in the inimical to it. Utopia requires as a minimum a complete consensus as to the conditions of utopia which is anything but diverse. | ||
==Utopia versus dystopia== | |||
A dystopia is just a utopia for pessimists. It is a stable dark inversion of utopia | |||
===Solutions to these logical conundrums=== | ===Solutions to these logical conundrums=== | ||
====Delayed gratification: “dangletopia” ==== | ====Delayed gratification: “dangletopia” ==== | ||
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*Religions promising afterlife paradise for those who have behaved themselves. | *Religions promising afterlife paradise for those who have behaved themselves. | ||
*Effective altruism, which says we are preparing for a utopian for our distant descendants which we will never see ... and which when they get to it, our distant descendants will be preparing for their distant descendants and so on. | *Effective altruism, which says we are preparing for a utopian for our distant descendants which we will never see ... and which when they get to it, our distant descendants will be preparing for their distant descendants and so on. | ||
===Nearly utopia=== | |||
Visions that almost get to utopia but don't quite, or don't manage the stable equilibrium to last (so all ''past'' utopias) | |||
====Let’s run it and see==== | ====Let’s run it and see==== | ||
Let’s try it out and see how it goes. Generally, badly, as the icy, atmospheric principles collide with the earthy urges of basic self-interest. | Let’s try it out and see how it goes. Generally, badly, as the icy, atmospheric principles collide with the earthy urges of basic self-interest. | ||
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converging on a uniform state of bliss is necessarily intolerant because the interest of accelerating towards the state of utopia means suppressing “misguided” opinions that distract from that quest. | converging on a uniform state of bliss is necessarily intolerant because the interest of accelerating towards the state of utopia means suppressing “misguided” opinions that distract from that quest. | ||
==='''Any''' convergence/directed progress theory is utopian=== | |||
If we are converging on truth then there is a point where we will get there. And our advancing computer power means it is advancing ever more quickly. This is the implications of the singularity. But once we are there then —? | |||
===Examples of utopian visions=== | ===Examples of utopian visions=== | ||
*[[Religion]]s that offer a post-mortem heaven or paradise — call these “dangletopian” programmes. | *[[Religion]]s that offer a post-mortem heaven or paradise — call these “dangletopian” programmes. | ||