There are way more people around now than there were then—the number of people alive today is comparable to the number of people who have died in the last millennium.
>The way I see this, if we happen to have greater intelligences working for our common good, we would be able to solve any problem better than a human could - including a possible problem of feeling useless.
That's a logical error: the existence of a superhuman intelligence might cause more problems than that superhuman intelligence can solve.
When humans solve the personal problem of "feeling useless" they almost without exception do it outside of a vacuum. Their feeling of usefulness tends to stem from the impact that they have on humanity.
Seriously, though, there will be no use for you (or any other human) whatsoever post-AI.
And that's the best-case scenario—when AI is being used for the common good. If the people with early access to it try to use it to rule the world and enslave humanity, they'll probably succeed.
I'm not trying to be an irrational doomsday predictor, here; these are just the conclusions that I come to when I work off of the premise "humanity will have access to cheap human-level intelligences".
Why am I the only person who's terrified rather than excited by every new incremental progression of AI? Do you guys actually look forward to the day when humans are made obsolete?
PS: This scientist seems to be exponentiating incorrectly. In ten years he'll have 32-ish times as much processing power; he needs 10 million times as much to get to the level of the entire brain.
I think that you have to distinguish between wars in which the outcome is uncertain—that is, wars in which real risk to both sides is present—and wars that are essentially a big guy beating up a little guy.
I agree that the former kind of war would happen with the same frequency if this pen pal idea were implemented—the motivation for such wars need to be large enough to overcome the personal danger that they produce, and so would easily overshadow semipersonal connections with citizens of the opposite side. I think that the latter would very much be deterred, though, because the motivation for such wars can be miniscule, to the point where even the humanization of the "enemy" could be a significant deterrent.