15 replies to this topic

[maestro949]

I just read that the massive multiplayer game World Of Warcraft Subscription has reaches 6 Million. A percentage of those are software geeks like me. It pains me to think of the wasted brainpower but if it wasn't gaming I doubt any of the time would be spent on making progress on scientific research using traditional learning techniques. Long hours at work followed up by an attempt to soak in large quantities of detail and abstract concepts isn't necessarily a stress reliever for most people. Much of the enjoyment from gaming lies in the satisfaction of overcoming challenges and stimulation of the imagination. The online multiplayer games allow you to get in some social interaction as well and not only prove your supposed worth to yourself but others as well. Delusional as it may sound it is highly addictive and increasingly syphoning off the world's braintrust. I don't see it ending but rather growing without bounds. Part of me wonders whether Massive Multiplayer communities are or could be the real precursors to a Singularity.

With gaming the challenges start out simple and progressively get more difficult. Rewards are granted as challenges are overcome. Coming up with a way to to boil scientific research and progress into something that can be formulated into an enjoyable challenge / reward cycle that can be entertaining and then form-factored into a multi-player "game" would not only harness the power of many minds working to overcome challenges but would also result in both short-term highs for the individual but could also lead to tangible rewards in terms of life extension and thus more time to play games.

The question is how to take "rules" like thermodynamics, quantum physics and relativity and turn them into enjoyable rules of gameplay? Assuming this can be accomplished, the next challenge becomes making the learning process an entertaining and challenging exercise that can be tackled by both teams and individuals.

One idea along these lines might be to create a game of evolution where the PC (Player Character) can jump in the game and pick a primitive single-celled life form to run with. The challenge the PC is faced with is to best evolve the life form into the most advanced lifeform possible by defending the germline and fending off attacks from bacteria, viruses and the obvious laws of physics that threaten to destroy your creation. Points are earned by survival in a world where random natural events, bacteria and dangerous viruses are thrown at all the PCs life forms. Those that happened to evolve to protect against events continue to advance, the rest lose experience points or worse, have to start over with a new life form. More points and advancements in levels correspond with your ability to either find or through trial and error create beneficial proteins and lower energy using pathways that better allow for your germline to survive. Teamplay concepts and bonus points can be introduced in the form of symbiosis or aggregating DNA into a combined effort to produce a more sophisticated lifeform where it takes more people to manage the process.

Just one silly idea but why not?

Edited by maestro949, 05 March 2006 - 10:53 PM.

[RighteousReason]

I think you made some very insightful observations here, and I think your idea is pretty awesome.

Delusional as it may sound it is highly addictive and increasingly syphoning off the world's braintrust

It's true, you're right.

Part of me wonders whether Massive Multiplayer communities are or could be the real precursors to a Singularity

They ARE not. They COULD BE... theoretically. I don't think this will happen in such a direct sense as you suggest, because there are many researchers right now who have a massive headstart on the Singularity, and the process you suggest seems far too slow. I think a more realistic idea would be finding some way to GET MONEY out of the system. And then give the money to the researchers.

[Kalepha]

They ARE not. They COULD BE... theoretically. I don't think this will happen in such a direct sense as you suggest, because there are many researchers right now who have a massive headstart on the Singularity, and the process you suggest seems far too slow. I think a more realistic idea would be finding some way to GET MONEY out of the system. And then give the money to the researchers.

Yes. maestro949, I'm pretty sure MMORPGs are a layer of game embedded within a layer of game that is more relevant. It is certainly unfortunate that the more relevant layers must be more stressful than the less relevant layers.

[Kalepha]

But maybe I should add that there probably aren't precise boundaries between layers and that it may not be altogether sensible to put excessive effort in completely avoiding presumably inferior layers.

[JonesGuy]

I sigh when I think about this hobby. However, I remember that they're driving the demand side of computer technology, which I guess is a good thing (better than pencil and paper gaming). These poor people constantly upgrade to the best hardware, meaning the hardware makers have a market to research for.

Sadly, I believe that the health cost and brain-sucking cost is too high. If we could get more of them folding@home (at least when they're not gaming), that would be a good market to tap.

edit: so if you're a member of WOW forums, maybe pointing out folding@home in your sig would be an idea - or even starting a thread trying to form a local community club (like we have here)

[maestro949]

But maybe I should add that there probably aren't precise boundaries between layers and that it may not be altogether sensible to put excessive effort in completely avoiding presumably inferior layers.

Only through creative means to harness the natural intelligence we already have will we ever ascend the boundaries. Artificial Intelligence will always be just that.

[squid]

My personal opinion is that while MMOs aren't directly feeding into any sort of singularity per say, they will play a big part in life down the road. In a transhumaned future, much like the servers in World of Warcraft, we will pick and choose our communities on a global level.

I run an world of warcraft database site (goblinworkshop.com), and also have a long background in text MUDs and other forms of MMO gaming.

One of my amature game projects that was a sci-fi MMO game that was intended to slowly introduce people to the concepts of immortality through transhumanism in a non-alarmist manner. It is something that is backburnered currently, but I still hope to see it through to completion once some problems with it get ironed out.

On a side note - your idea does sound fun. In a somewhat similar vein - Maxis is working on a video game that should be out 4th quarter of this year, called 'Spore' where you start at the microscopic level, and build up to a spacefaring civilization.

There are other possibilities.. such as designing games that could be used as some sort of precursor gui for a nano assembler, etc.

Also - keep sending the work units, and I'll keep folding them.

[rjws]

Well ...... Im probably your worst nightmare heh. I have played UO, WOW, SWG, and earth and beyond MMORPG's I have beta tested most of those before they came out and recently Beta tested DDO wich is horrible IMO. I do have folding@home on my comps. I also have a website I run for the server I play on for WOW www.malfuriononline.com


I have breached the immortality concept with my friends and guild several times and at best I get a laugh. The only prospect that seems to arouse their intrest is that of downloading themselves into an MMORPG of their choice. Any members here feel free to take polls at my site if you wish to see for yourselves. There are a lot more topics than you will see because I also host guilds in private forums that only the guilds and my Admins can see. I think I have around 60 Members wich isnt bad I run IPB 1.3 With a portal hacked in. Its really nice IPB wich my best friend Val did most of the work as he Knows a few of the designers at IPB.

[apocalypse]

I just so love these things. Would you imagine how challenging it would get if these people got involved in the race? We need to steer most of the masses into passively gathering resources for us without thinking too much about that which is most relevant. They must inadvertently be the gears and cogs for our glorious machine. Lest they question their place in this glorious machine and disrupt its function, its ability to give birth to the divine.

[rahein]

Squid:

Anarchy Online is a very transhuman MMORPG. You get to upgrade each of your body parts and can make a backup yourself incase you die. They don't have spells they use nanobots. Every cool game.

Also you say you played MUDs ever played Gemstone 3 or Telearena?

[maestro949]

We need to steer most of the masses into passively gathering resources for us without thinking too much about that which is most relevant.

For the past few centuries that is exactly what western civilization has been doing and doing it fairly well - i.e. generating wealth and technology at an accelerating rate by reinvesting capital in technological advancements while exploiting the steerage class by giving them just enough of a wage and opiates to keep 'em from revolting. This new middle class thing is new and we're still not utilizing it efficiently as we could or should.

The last two generations we have made enormous investments in higher education developing a sizable techno-savy workforce but the new global economy and it's army of technocrat leaders at the helm of have yet to figure out how to mobilize this new class of work force. Investment dollars are thrown at technology for making business and accounting software, high-tech weaponry, better porn delivery mechanisms, gaming consoles and artificial barriers to entry to consolidate monopolies in commodities markets. Meanwhile the skills of this highly educated workforce are atrophying and their brainpower and problem solving skills are being used to kill virtual orcs.

Forms of interactive entertainment that are just addictive that also happen to push the frontier of scientific knowledge forward would probably do so at an exponential rate. I suspect that this will be possible when scientific research reaches a point where it is done mostly in silico. Computing power still is one of the limiting factors here but it's not hard to imagine a distributed computing project like folding@home where the client also provides the ability for the end user to learn the science, team up with others and do trial and error experiments where the results are distributed to the rest of the online community in real-time.

[zerowave]

where the client also provides the ability for the end user to learn the science, team up with others and do trial and error experiments where the results are distributed to the rest of the online community in real-time.

What a great idea! As I do research in the lab, and keep things pretty digital, (notes, images, etc) I think it could easily be very valuable to have a few virtual researchers to think over the results of experiments. I especially agree that results should be real time. On that note I also think that all government funded work should carry the requirement of making lab notebooks available online, and searchable.

This reminds me of a book by greg egan, "permutation city" where people would manipulate virtual molecules and organisms as an addictive game.

[arrogantatheist]

I think the way mmorpgs work by making each level longer and more challenging then the last.. is very effective at building up an individuals learning ability and concentration ability. Grind for many hours in a difficult situation for a level.. and doing and hours homework seems very easy in comparison.

Also I have argued for some time that mmorpgs are the beginnings of where the world is headed. Toward simulated realities as full time life.

I worked at Disney Interactive and argued we should build a mmorpg for edutainment. I've seen kids who fail at school become masters in mmorpgs because of the progression and fun element. Learning can be part of advancing to the next level. Learning reading can easily be part of a quest your character is moving through.

[Da55id]

I was the founder of Worlds Inc. which was first in this field. This already is a singularity. Infinite space in an (almost) zero footprint physical space. Not the kind of AI singularity you mean though. I think the likely path of the future is "liberal borgism". There is already a supra intelligence that is not conscious manifested the feedback patterns of modern accelerating socio/politco/eco "weather"

[Da55id]

I founded Worlds to provide the path to global rich education at zear zero cost. An earlier venture, Knowledge Adventure was a stepping stone to that vision. To break a dam, just make a crack - then RUN!

[stephen]

... but the new global economy and it's army of technocrat leaders at the helm of have yet to figure out how to mobilize this new class of work force.  Investment dollars are thrown at technology for making business and accounting software, high-tech weaponry, better porn delivery mechanisms, gaming consoles and artificial barriers to entry to consolidate monopolies in commodities markets.

The beautiful thing about market capitalism is the lack of "technocrat leaders". It's always amusing when someone speaks of GWB or Greenspan / Bernanke "leading the economy". Government only has the capacity to destroy and consume wealth, never to create it. If the billions upon billions of dollars were in our pockets instead of the Gov'ts, longevity research would be far better off. (Less waste on stuff like wars and space shuttles [lol] ).

Meanwhile the skills of this highly educated workforce are atrophying and their brainpower and problem solving skills are being used to kill virtual orcs. 

I think one of the MAJOR barriers to effective use of skilled brainpower is... the internet! The internet is like candy for people who love to learn (myself included). Before I "found" the internet, I would consume books and journals like a madman. My passion is for learning. The problem with the internet is -- it lowers the barriers to "learning". This is good and bad. The bad is: a lot of the information on the internet is like junk food. The reward (sugar rush) is quick, but it's not all that good for you in the long run. You can get mired in the terabytes of new info created every day without ever learning anything worthwhile!

/rant