[...] 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.
Two things surprised me in your argument. One is that you seemed to assume that features of human ethics (which you attribute to our having evolved as social animals) would be universal in the sense that they would also apply to AIs which did not evolve and which aren't necessarily social.
The second is that although you pay lip service to game theory, you don't seem to be aware of any game theoretic research on ethics deeper than Axelrod(1984) and the Tit-for-Tat experiments. You ought to at least peruse Binsmore's "Natural Justice", even if you don't want to plow through the two volumes of "Game Theory and the Social Contract".