Maybe I'm just misunderstanding your use of the terms. I take it by "open loop" you mean that the AI would seek to generate an improved version of itself, but would simply provide that code back to the researcher rather than running it itself?
Roughly, yes. But I see recursive self-improvement as having a hardware component as well, so "closed loop" also includes giving the AI control over electronics factories and electronic assembly robots.
... 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?
Odd. My expectation for the software-only and architecture-change portion of the self-improvement is that the curve would be the exact opposite - some big gains early by picking off low-hanging fruit, but slower improvement thereafter. It is only in the exponential growth of incorporated hardware that you would get a curve like that which you seem to expect.
includes giving the AI control over electronics factories and electronic assembly robots.
Or letting them seize control of ...
Not necessarily that hard given the existence of stuxnet.
[...] 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.