Future Shock Levels
From the SL4 Lexicon:
Future Shock Levels:
Eliezer Yudkowsky's original essay on Future Shock Levels. Available here: http://sysopmind.com/sing/shocklevels.html. See also Shock Level Zero, Shock Level One , Shock Level Two, Shock Level Three, Shock Level Four, Future Shock Levels.
Taken from Future Shock Levels by Eliezer Yudkowsky. See that document for a full explanation.
- SL0
- The legendary average person is comfortable with modern technology - not so much the frontiers of modern technology, but the technology used in everyday life. Most people, TV anchors, journalists, politicians.
- SL1
- Virtual reality, living to be a hundred, "The Road Ahead", "To Renew America", "Future Shock", the frontiers of modern technology as seen by Wired magazine. Scientists, novelty-seekers, early-adopters, programmers, technophiles.
- SL2
- Medical immortality, interplanetary exploration, major genetic engineering, and new ("alien") cultures. The average SF fan.
- SL3
- Nanotechnology, non-exponentially improving AI, minor intelligence enhancement, uploading, total body revision, intergalactic exploration. Extropians and transhumanists.
- SL4
- The Singularity, Jupiter Brains, Powers, complete mental revision, ultraintelligence, posthumanity, Alpha-Point computing, Apotheosis, the total evaporation of "life as we know it." Singularitarians and not much else.
Ontotechnology is a good candidate for Shock Level 5. However, it is not clear to me that humans can actually achieve SL5; we can be aware of its existence, but we may not be sufficiently intelligent to reach any sort of deep understanding of it. As usual, this level makes no sense to people at SL2 and below.
Starglider has a point- as a low-end SL3, my reaction to this idea is complete disbelief. And... I'm fairly certain that the reaction of SL0s would be such shock that it isn't even comprehensible to them. As in, they would... no, wait, you'd get burnt at the stake after all. Never mind. However, Ontotechnology seems very useful for the purpose of making-Singularity-seem-possible...
--Angelica Klosky
