I disagreed with the idea of disrupting randomly chosen research efforts, because I don't see how this improves the chances that the first AI will be friendly, and only pushes back the date of the singularity by a few years. I somewhat facetiously exempted the idea of causing a collapse of civilization from my disapproval, because I see the Friendliness problem as mathematical/philosophical whereas the AGI problem probably also has a technological component. So I imagine that a collapse would set back AGI research farther than Friendliness research.
I agree with your horror at the potential atrocities that can be justified once people start worrying about optimizing undiscounted distant future utilities. A failure to discount is, so far as I can tell, the source of almost all of the insanity in this community's take on the Singularity. Nonetheless, as I say in my last paragraph, working to make sure that the first superhuman AGI is friendly is pretty damned good idea.
A failure to discount is, so far as I can tell, the source of almost all of the insanity in this community's take on the Singularity.
Probably the main idea the area here is the proposal that - within a few decades, not long after we get powerful machine intelligence, something really, really bad might happen - and that we can influence whether it will or not.
I might differ considerably on the p()s and details - but I think that proposition is a reasonable one.
Since the event in question will probably be within the lifetimes of many here, I think it is close enough for many people's temporal discounting to leave it partially intact.
Agree / disagree?
Having all known life on Earth concentrated on a single planet is an existential risk. So we should try to spread out, right? As soon as possible?
Yet, if we had advanced civilizations on two planets, that would be two places for unfriendly AI to originate. If, as many people here believe, a single failed trial ruins the universe, you want to have as few places trying it as possible. So you don't want any space colonization until after AI is developed.
If we apply that logic to countries, you would want as few industrialized nations as possible until AAI (After AI). So instead of trying to help Africa, India, China, and the Middle East develop, you should be trying to suppress them. In fact, if you really believed the calculations I commonly see used in these circles about the probability of unfriendly AI and its consequences, you should be trying to exterminate human life outside of your developed country of choice. Failing to would be immoral.
And if you apply it within the USA, you need to pick one of MIT and Stanford and Carnegie Mellon, and burn the other two to the ground.
Of course, doing this will slow the development of AI. But that's a good thing, if UFAI is most likely and has zero utility.
In fact, if slowing development is good, probably the best thing of all is just to destroy civilization and stop development completely.
Do you agree with any of this? Is there a point where you think it goes too far? If so, say where it goes too far and explain why.
I see two main flaws in the reasoning.
ADDED: A number of the comments so far imply that the first AI built will necessarily FOOM immediately. FOOM is an appealing argument. I've argued in favor of it myself. But it is not a theorem. I don't care who you are; you do not know enough about AI and its future development to bet the future of the universe on your intuition that non-FOOMing AI is impossible. You may even think FOOM is the default case; that does not make it the only case to consider. In this case, even a 1% chance of a non-foom AI, multiplied by astronomical differences in utility, could justify terrible present disutility.