Sir Roger Penrose & de Garis to Fight in Discovery Channel
"Artilect Debate" TV Documentary (30 mins)
On December 12th. 2000, Prof. Dr. Hugo de Garis and Prof. Dr. Sir Roger Penrose will debate the "artilect issue" in a 30 minute Discovery Channel TV program to be filmed in London, UK. The first 10 minutes of this documentary will be a repeat showing of the first Discovery Channel documentary on de Garis's ideas made in June 2000 which had de Garis tramping around Belgium, UK and Spain, saying that a gigadeath artilect war is coming. This 10 minute (sub) documentary will set the stage for a debate on the artilect issue between de Garis and Penrose and a third person.
Penrose is one of the most formidable intellects on the planet, and a well known opponent of Steven Hawking's views on the nature of space and time, black holes, cosmology, and the universe. Once I learned that my opponent in this debate would be Penrose, I felt both elated and scared at the same time - elated, because his acceptance to do this shows that he takes the issue seriously enough to bother with it, and scared, because I dont have his 200+ IQ, and therefore will run the risk of being intellectually crushed by him. If it happens that I am able to hold up my own, I will be very happy (and surprised). Perhaps Penrose wishes to "swat the de Garisian gadfly" once and for all? If thats the case, then he may find that a passionate de Garis, fighting for his intellectual life and international reputation, may be a lot more prickly and present far more solid arguments than he imagines. This report will obviously be updated after the event, reporting on how it went.
Penrose is by far the most prestigious opponent that de Garis has had to contend with. It shows that the artilect issue is being taken ever more seriously when someone of Penrose's stature agrees to debate the topic (i.e. whether humanity should build artilects and hence run the risk of being exterminated by them). In fact it is difficult to imagine an individual of higher intellectual status. I suppose the next step on my part will be to persuade the politicians. This process has already started, with de Garis being invited to speak to 140 French "Senateurs" in the summer of 2001. Stay tuned.
After the event -
Well, it wasnt so bad. Penrose's basic point to me before, during and after the program, was that for a machine to be intelligent (rather than just clever) it needs to be conscious, and to explain consciousness he feels, we need some new physics that just does not exist yet. I left motivated to read Penrose's books (all of which I have bought but have not got round to reading yet - I have 6000 books in my private library).
A week later I was in Paris for a second Discovery Channel TV debate on AI and the threat of smart machines in the 21st century. The topic is getting fashionable. Who said there isnt a god!