It seems you’re saying that such observations by experts are not to be trusted. I mostly agree which makes the case for real advances stronger. I was trying not to sound too optimistic; people on the internet tend to be jaded and hate optimism. At least that’s how it often seems since those are the loudest voices.
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Look, I’m a KSR completist and can’t think of a guy who can set a scene better, but he’s right on this point only if you project from what we know now. I have no idea if we can ever know enough ecology or biology or physics to do this, but I am perfectly happy to wait 100 or 200 years to lay down my marker. Projecting agricultural technology from 1915 to today would have yielded some interesting (and possibly correct) broad predictions, but they’d absolutely have been wrong on all the particulars.
Sure, be a good steward to the Earth in the mean time, but “never” is an inordinately long time. Humanity will, eventually, own the stars.
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We are already capable of matching the human mind in calculations
Yeah, no. (Unless you mean "purely mechanical calculations - in which case that was solved a looooong time ago. But coming up with the caclulations? nope.)
the hardware IS actually here for that - the software/programming side of the equation is less than two years away.
Yeah, no.
That’s not pie-in-the-sky hope, it’s based on real science, real technology.
Yeah, no.
The advances made to AI just in the past eighteen months is more
than the previous ten years.
Yeah, no.
I’ll be happy to come back in Nov of 2017 so we can discuss where we
are.
Yeah, that I’d like to see.
It’s easy to look back and be pessimistic but you have to base that on concrete things and comparing where we are now to the environment that existed in the fifties (or even the sixties or seventies) is just inaccurate.
So, looking at the future based on where we are now is ok? But looking at where we are now based on the past is just innacurate?
Yeah, no. You have a funny idea of verifiable accuracy.
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You could have just said “citation needed” 
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Yeah, no.
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I completely agree with your sentiments. If I came across as too optimistic it’s in reaction to the relentless negativity I find on sites that cover science and technology. I don’t for a minute think it’s a sure thing that we’ll be able to travel the stars, colonize mars, terraform worlds etc. but I draw the line at saying flatly that we won’t. I contend that if none of those thing happen it will not be because humanity failed to find the answers or figure out the science or the technology. The only thing that will stop us from at the very least spreading into our solar system will be either destruction by our own hands or at the hands of nature (asteroids, super-volcanoes, take your pick).
The only area I would push back on is the timing. I took a weekend in September to just throw myself into the world of 1910 to get a little perspective. It was jarring. I know there are a lot of things we come across online that go into the whole idea of how far along we are compared to some time in the past but to really look at specific things like medicine, agriculture, lifespan (48!!), science and technology is eye opening.
Even comparing those areas from 1950 is pretty mind blowing. There is an exponential curve happening - not just in science and technology but all of those areas.
I think there’s enough evidence of those exponential advances to say that if those problem areas can be overcome, then barring some unforeseen catastrophe (man-made or otherwise) we’re looking at decades, not centuries. A really good example of this phenomenon is fusion. It’s been “just fifteen years away” for almost fifty years and yet this week a project using a stellerator instead of a tokamak will go online and Lockheed Martin have announced a compact fusion design they expect to be marketing in 2017. We’re seeing a faster curve in AI progress just this year alone that surpasses the progress made in the previous five years.
I admit I’m an optimist but I’m basing it on real world examples of progress. The only thing really holding a lot of this back is politics and the funding for science but even that is turning around as more and more private companies are seeing the profit to be made in advancing these technologies.
It’s a whole other argument as to whether the profit motive is good for humanity in the long run but I’ll save that for another day 
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not only helpful for creating and managing gerneration ships but also as a counterpoint to “there is no planet B”: if we’re able to run stable habitats in asteroid belts or orbiting larger objects a goldilocks second earth is not necessarily needed.
I see, “We” as in US. I would have written “and robots on Venus in 1970”.
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I don’t know why but “Yeah no” just doesn’t seem convincing. Your pretty picture is nice though.
This is BoingBoing people, if you’re too f’ing lazy or apathetic to look up the claims that’s about you not me. I know what I believe and I know why. If you’re happy wallowing in your hipster mentality then by all means, enjoy.
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Exactly and they don’t mention that the iWatch they’re wearing has more computing power than the moon mission did. Kind of a helpful perspective.
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How exactly is it cynicism? There are an infinite number of things you might do, but you can’t do all of them, you need to choose. If you have a way to do something which others say you can’t, then do it anyway. If you can’t, your complaints are impotent.
ETA: What I am trying to say is that “optimism” is based only partly upon what can happen, and moreso upon people’s subjective ideas of what they think should happen.
Isn’t that what you’ve offered here? Saying that “Scientists will figure it out” is itself not terribly scientific.
What the hell is “the human mind”? There is still not much consensus about what the phrase even refers to. Do you mean the brain? The brain is not a programmable logic device, so comparison of instructions/calculations is - once again, as you say - comparing apples and oranges. Human cognition does not appear comprised of simple discrete switching.
It is indeed pie-in-the-sky to get worked up about betting upon solutions you assume exist at a future time. There is no need to even do so. Scientific methodology does not work by making statistical models of human progress and then extrapolating new discoveries from nothing. You do your work, and it takes as long as it takes. If you already knew the answers it would yield, you wouldn’t need to do it. I wonder if you are confusing science for technology, which works more as a commercial wish-list of exploiting recent knowledge which is already proven to work.
We can always discuss where we are. We can do it right now. And we don’t need to go anywhere to do so in 2017. Why are you even still measuring time in Earth years? Isn’t that a cynical refutation of our ability to colonize other planets?
How did you do it? What are your actual AI goals which are being attained? Futurology sounds more like vapid cheerleading of humanity than it does actual solutions to actual problems. People are able to do more and different things, but whether or not this constitutes an “advance” depends upon what your goals actually are. New discoveries which do not help me to attain my goals do not advance me towards it. This presupposes a certain kind of pre-destined schema of shared goals and means which does not demonstrably exist.
What does this even mean?!?!
(Is it a CT thing? My mother-in-law says this and it drives me batty)
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Odd that KSR does not even mention the possibility of self-replicating machines–whether nanotechnology or larger-scale robotic factories–even though the idea is old hat in science fiction. If you send just one of these to a distant star system which has sufficient natural resources in planets/moons/asteroids, then it can self-replicate and the number of these machines can grow exponentially, and once their numbers are sufficient some portion of them can be programmed to work on other very large projects, whether hollowing out asteroids to function as gigantic O’Neill cylinders, or even terraforming entire moons or planets. If this is possible, then if you want to send human colonists, you can wait until after the self-replicating machines have already had enough time to prepare large settlements that can already be waiting when they arrive.
Also not mentioned by KSR is the possibility of sending mind uploads or other artificial intelligences, perhaps carrying a cargo of frozen embryos and necessary bacteria if you are set on establishing a biological presence on distant worlds (and who would be able to raise and teach the newborn children). Perhaps KSR wants to consider whether space colonization would work if more pessimistic projections of AI and mind uploading turn out to be correct, but even so, self-replicating machines would not really require humanlike intelligence, just robots somewhat better at doing rote tasks while navigating real-world environments than the ones we have today.
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You have a set of un-cited, unsubstatianted claims that people with a knowledge of that subject area do not believe.
This is BoingBoing people. The onus of proving an unsubstatiated claim is on you.
Yeah, no.
Computing power != artificial intelligence much in the same way that gas-mileage != artificial intelligence. They are unrelated.
We can’t even get computers to tell stories after 60 years of work, and you’re telling us we can … actually, I’m not sure what you are saying, upon reflection. I had assumed you were talking about AI - because otherwise, what’s so interesting about the number of calculations?
We are already capable of matching the human mind in calculations - the
hardware IS actually here for that - the software/programming side of
the equation is less than two years away.
I already conceded that – but asserting that computers are already capable of matching the human mind in calculations is like saying that cars are faster than humans. That’s just not interesting, nor is it important.
Nor does it have anything to do with Artificial Intelligence – but that’s something I threw into the conversation about speed, not you. It appears you are talking Moore’s law, which is boring (unless you then start talking hooey about the singularity or faster-than-light travel to other planets, and then you are a crank.)
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“Yeah, I hear you and I understand what you are saying, but – no. You’re are absofuckinglutely insanely wrong.”
Is it a CT thing?
Yeah, no.
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When I started reading this I took Robinson’s statement as an attempt to focus humanity on solving problems here first - which is a laudable goal - but that’s not what he’s doing. KSR doesn’t note that there are currently no solutions - he plainly is implying there are no solutions. I agree with corwinsr saying there needs to be a reasonable balance between stark negativity and blind optimism. That’s not the same as shielding impressionable minds as you accuse. KSR has changed over the years and maybe there’s something mental going on with him. I’ve heard him make that perchlorate/nitrogen argument a few times lately and it’s just plain, flat out not true. I can’t figure out why he’s persisting in it but it certainly undermines his other conclusions.
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or SASQUATCH ROBOTS
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Oh, you’re one of those. Thanks for clearing that up. I actually thought you were interested in ideas. You just want to fight about everything. No.
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Where those := a member of the community who created their account > 22 minutes ago, and have participated regularly?
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This was funnier when I read it as AI goats.
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Given the current rate of advancement in exoplanet astronomy, long before we have the ability to build generation starships, we will have pretty thorough knowledge of all the nearby exoplanets that are suitably earthlike, including knowing which ones have atmospheres that could harbour life and which don’t. So picking a dead but terraformable planet to go to won’t be a problem. Picking a live planet will be a lot more tricky, but considering the risk of discovering that the indigenous life thinks we are tasty, our future interstellar colonists probably won’t want to head for a live planet anyway.
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