I simply can't see where the above beliefs might come from. I'm left assuming that you just don't mean the same thing by AI as I usually mean.
And I can't see where your beliefs might come from. What are you telling potential donors or AGI researchers? That AI is dangerous by definition? Well, what if they have a different definition, what should make them update in favor of your definition? That you thought about it for more than a decade now? I perceive serious flaws in any of the replies I got so far in under a minute and I am a nobody. There is too much at stake here to base the decision to neglect all other potential existential risks on the vague idea that intelligence might come up with something we haven't thought about. If that kind of intelligence is as likely as other risks then it doesn't matter what it comes up with anyway because those other risks will wipe us out just as good and with the same probability.
There already are many people criticizing the SIAI right now, even on LW. Soon, once you are more popular, other people than me will scrutinize everything you ever wrote. And what do you expect them to conclude if even a professional AGI researcher, who has been a member of the SIAI, does write the following:
Every AGI research I know can see that. The only people I know who think that an early-stage, toddler-level AGI has a meaningful chance of somehow self-modifying its way up to massive superhuman intelligence -- are people associated with SIAI.
But I have never heard any remotely convincing arguments in favor of this odd, outlier view !!!
BTW the term "self-modifying" is often abused in the SIAI community. Nearly all learning involves some form of self-modification. Distinguishing learning from self-modification in a rigorous formal way is pretty tricky.
Why would I disregard his opinion in favor of yours? Can you present any novel achievements that would make me conclude that you people are actually experts when it comes to intelligence? The LW sequences are well written but do not showcase some deep comprehension of the potential of intelligence. Yudkowsky was able to compile previously available knowledge into a coherent framework of rational conduct. That isn't sufficient to prove that he has enough expertise on the topic of AI to make me believe him regardless of any antipredictions being made that weaken the expected risks associated with AI. There is also insufficient evidence to conclude that Yudkowsky, or someone within the SIAI, is smart enough to be able to tackle the problem of friendliness mathematically.
If you would at least let some experts take a look at your work and assess its effectiveness and general potential. But there exists no peer review at all. There have been some popular people attend the Singularity Summit. Have you asked them why they do not contribute to the SIAI? Have you for example asked Douglas Hofstadter why he isn't doing everything he can to mitigate risks from AI? Sure, you got some people to donate a lot of money to the SIAI. But to my knowledge they are far from being experts and contribute to other organisations as well. Congratulations on that, but even cults get rich people to support them. I'll update on donors once they say why they support you and their arguments are convincing or if they are actually experts or people being able to showcase certain achievements.
My guess is that you are implicitly thinking of a fairly complicated story but are not spelling that out.
Intelligence is powerful, intelligence doesn't imply friendliness, therefore intelligence is dangerous. Is that the line of reasoning based on which I shall neglect other risks? If you think so then you are making it more complicated than necessary. You do not need intelligence to invent stuff to kill us if there's already enough dumb stuff around that is more likely to kill us. And I do not think that it is reasonable to come up with a few weak arguments on how intelligence could be dangerous and conclude that their combined probability beats any good argument against one of the premises or in favor of other risks. The problems are far too diverse, you can't combine them and proclaim that you are going to solve all of them by simply defining friendliness mathematically. I just don't see that right now because it is too vague. You could as well replace friendliness with magic as the solution to the many disjoint problems of intelligence.
Intelligence is also not the solution to all other problems we face. As I argued several times, I just do not see that recursive self-improvement will happen any time soon and cause an intelligence explosion. What evidence is there against a gradual development? As I see it we will have to painstakingly engineer intelligent machines. There won't be some meta-solution that outputs meta-science to subsequently solve all other problems.
A somewhat important correction:
There is too much at stake here to base the decision to neglect all other potential existential risks on the vague idea that intelligence might come up with something we haven't thought about.
To my knowledge, SIAI does not actually endorse neglecting all potential x-risks besides UFAI. (Analysis might recommend discounting the importance of fighting them head-on, but that analysis should still be done when resources are available.)
Major update here.
The state of affairs regarding the SIAI and its underlying rationale and rules of operation are insufficiently clear.
Most of the arguments involve a few propositions and the use of probability and utility calculations to legitimate action. Here much is uncertain to an extent that I'm not able to judge any nested probability estimations. Even if you tell me, where is the data on which you base those estimations?
There seems to be an highly complicated framework of estimations to support and reinforce each other. I'm not sure how you call this in English, but in German I'd call that a castle in the air.
I know that what I'm saying may simply be due to a lack of knowledge and education, that is why I am inquiring about it. How many of you, who currently support the SIAI, are able to analyse the reasoning that led you to support the SIAI in the first place, or at least substantiate your estimations with other kinds of evidence than a coherent internal logic?
I can follow much of the reasoning and arguments on this site. But I'm currently unable to judge their overall credence. Are the conclusions justified? Is the coherent framework build around the SIAI based on firm ground? There seems to be no critical inspection or examination by a third party. There is no peer review. Yet people are willing to donate considerable amounts of money.
I'm concerned that, although consistently so, the SIAI and its supporters are updating on fictional evidence. This post is meant to inquire about the foundations of your basic premises. Are you creating models to treat subsequent models or are your propositions based on fact?
An example here is the use of the Many-worlds interpretation. Itself a logical implication, can it be used to make further inferences and estimations without additional evidence? MWI might be the only consistent non-magic interpretation of quantum mechanics. The problem here is that such conclusions are, I believe, widely considered not to be enough to base further speculations and estimations on. Isn't that similar to what you are doing when speculating about the possibility of superhuman AI and its consequences? What I'm trying to say here is that if the cornerstone of your argumentation, if one of your basic tenets is the likelihood of superhuman AI, although a valid speculation given what we know about reality, you are already in over your head with debt. Debt in the form of other kinds of evidence. Not to say that it is a false hypothesis, that it is not even wrong, but that you cannot base a whole movement and a huge framework of further inference and supportive argumentation on such premises, on ideas that are themselves not based on firm ground.
The gist of the matter is that a coherent and consistent framework of sound argumentation based on unsupported inference is nothing more than its description implies. It is fiction. Imagination allows for endless possibilities while scientific evidence provides hints of what might be possible and what impossible. Science does provide the ability to assess your data. Any hint that empirical criticism provides gives you new information on which you can build on. Not because it bears truth value but because it gives you an idea of what might be possible. An opportunity to try something. There’s that which seemingly fails or contradicts itself and that which seems to work and is consistent.
And that is my problem. Given my current educational background and knowledge I cannot differentiate LW between a consistent internal logic, i.e. imagination or fiction, and something which is sufficiently based on empirical criticism to provide a firm substantiation of the strong arguments for action that are proclaimed by the SIAI.
Further, do you have an explanation for the circumstance that Eliezer Yudkowsky is the only semi-popular person who's aware of something that might shatter the universe? Why is it that people like Vernor Vinge, Robin Hanson or Ray Kurzweil are not running amok using all their influence to convince people of the risks ahead, or at least give all they have to the SIAI? Why aren't Eric Drexler, Gary Drescher or AI researches like Marvin Minsky worried to the extent that they signal their support?
I'm talking to quite a few educated people outside this community. They do not doubt all those claims for no particular reason. Rather they tell me that there are too many open questions to focus on the possibilities depicted by the SIAI and to neglect other near-term risks that might wipe us out as well.
I believe that many people out there know a lot more than I do, so far, about related topics and yet they seem not to be nearly as concerned about the relevant issues than the average Less Wrong member. I could have named other people. That's besides the point though, it's not just Hanson or Vinge but everyone versus Eliezer Yudkowsky and some unknown followers. What about the other Bayesians out there? Are they simply not as literate as Eliezer Yudkowsky in the maths or maybe somehow teach but not use their own methods of reasoning and decision making?
What do you expect me to do, just believe Eliezer Yudkowsky? Like I believed so much in the past which made sense but turned out to be wrong? Maybe after a few years of study I'll know more.
...
2011-01-06: As this post received over 500 comments I am reluctant to delete it. But I feel that it is outdated and that I could do much better today. This post has however been slightly improved to account for some shortcomings but has not been completely rewritten, neither have its conclusions been changed. Please account for this when reading comments that were written before this update.
2012-08-04: A list of some of my critical posts can be found here: SIAI/lesswrong Critiques: Index