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GALAXY BRAIN: The ultimate (?) distributed intelligence, an intelligent being with parts spread across an entire galaxy. The internal communication lags would be on the order of tens of thousands years, making the top level very slow (but subminds could be much faster). The parts could be jupiter brains or other intelligen superobjects.

GAUSSIAN: People whose characteristics (like intelligence or length) are normally distributed (the Gauss distribution); normal people in both senses of the word. Used to refer to unaugmented people, since augmented people could have a radically different distribution of characteristics.

GENEGENEERING: Genetic engineering.

GENETIC ALGORITHM: Any algorithm which seeks to solve a problem by considering numerous possibilities at once, ranking them according to some standard of fitness, and then combining ("breeding") the fittest in some way. In other words, any algorithm which imitates natural selection. See the Genetic Algorithms FAQ.

GENIE: An AI combined with an assembler or other universal constructor, programmed to build anything the owner wishes. Sometimes called a Santa Machine. This assumes a very high level of AI and nanotechnology.

GREAT FILTER, THE: The Great Filter refers to the hypothetical mechanism(s) or principle(s) by which the great number of potentially life-bearing planets get filtered out before they have produced intelligent life forms that expand into cosmos. See also the Fermi paradox

GREEN GOO: Nanomachines or bio-engineered organisms used for population control of humans, either by governments or eco-terrorist groups. Would most probably work by sterilizing people through otherwise harmless infections. See Nick Szabo's essay Green Goo -- Life in the Era of Humane Genocide.

GREY GOO: Self-replicating (von Neumann) nanomachines spreading uncontrolably, building copies of themselves using all available material. This is a commonly mentioned nanotechnology disaster scenario, although it is rather unlikely due to energy constraints and elemental abundances. More probable disaster scenarios are the green goo, golden goo and red goo, khaki goo scenarios. As a protection blue goo has been proposed.

GÖDEL'S THEOREM: (Gödel's incompleteness theorem) Any proposed axiom set for arithmetic is either consistent (no contradictions can be derived) or complete (it will say yes or no to every arithmetic proposition). In other words, any axiom set strong enough to include arithmetic which is complete will be inconsistent (it will say yes and no to at least one question).

GOLDEN GOO: Another member of the grey goo family of nanotechnology disaster scenarios. The idea is to use nanomachines to filter gold from seawater. If this process got out of control we would get piles of golden goo (the "Wizard's Apprentice Problem"). This scenario demonstrates the need of keeping populations of self-replicating machines under control; it is much more likely than grey goo, but also more manageable. [Originated on sci.nanotech 1996]

GUY FAWKES SCENARIO: If nanotechnology becomes widely available, it might become trivial for anyone to committ acts of terrorism (such as making nanomachines build a large amount of explosives under government buildings a la Guy Fawkes). This would either force strict control over nanotechnology (hard) or a decentralized mode of organization.


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Anders Sandberg / asa@nada.kth.se
2000-03-11