I have no idea how to limit the IQ of AIs that other people produce without my knowledge. For AI's that I produce myself, I would simply do without closed-loop recursive self-improvement (aka, keep the AI in a box) until I have a proven FAI architecture in hand.
I'm reasonably confident that a closed-loop FOOM is impossible until AI "IQ" goes well past the max human level. I am also reasonably confident that closing the recursive self-improvement loop doesn't speed things up much until you reach that level, either.
So, if a "Sane AI" project like this one, operating under the slogan of "Open loop until we have a proof" can maintain a technological lead of a year or so over a "Risky AI" project with the slogan "Close the loop - Full speed ahead", then I'm pretty sure it is actually safer than a "Secure FAI" project operating under the slogan "No AGI until we have a proof". Because it has a better chance of establishing and maintaining that technological lead.
Hm, so then the issue just becomes how to keep the AI from closing its own loop (i.e. modifying itself in-memory through some security hole it finds). I agree that it seems unlikely to figure out how to do so at a relatively low level of intelligence.
On the other hand, it seems like it would be pretty hard to do research on self-improvement without a closed loop; isn't the expectation usually that the self-improvement process won't start doing anything particularly interesting until many iterations have passed?
Maybe I'm just misunderstanding your use of th...
[...] SIAI's Scary Idea goes way beyond the mere statement that there are risks as well as benefits associated with advanced AGI, and that AGI is a potential existential risk.
[...] Although an intense interest in rationalism is one of the hallmarks of the SIAI community, still I have not yet seen a clear logical argument for the Scary Idea laid out anywhere. (If I'm wrong, please send me the link, and I'll revise this post accordingly. Be aware that I've already at least skimmed everything Eliezer Yudkowsky has written on related topics.)
So if one wants a clear argument for the Scary Idea, one basically has to construct it oneself.
[...] If you put the above points all together, you come up with a heuristic argument for the Scary Idea. Roughly, the argument goes something like: If someone builds an advanced AGI without a provably Friendly architecture, probably it will have a hard takeoff, and then probably this will lead to a superhuman AGI system with an architecture drawn from the vast majority of mind-architectures that are not sufficiently harmonious with the complex, fragile human value system to make humans happy and keep humans around.
The line of argument makes sense, if you accept the premises.
But, I don't.
Ben Goertzel: The Singularity Institute's Scary Idea (and Why I Don't Buy It), October 29 2010. Thanks to XiXiDu for the pointer.