[...] 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.
And a sufficiently clever human should realize that clever humans can and do routinely increase the efficiencies of their industry enough to shift the comparative advantage.
It really doesn't take that much human-level intelligence to change how things are done -- all it takes is a lack of attachment to the current ways.
And that's perhaps the biggest "natural resource" an AI has: the lack of status quo bias.
I'm not sure I understand what "shift the comparative advantage" could mean, and I have no idea why this is supposed to be a response to my point.
Maybe I didn't make my point clearly enough. My contention is that even if an AI is better at absolutely everything than a human being, it could still be better off trading with human beings for certain goods, for the simple reaso... (read more)