AndrewHickey comments on Fast Minds and Slow Computers - Less Wrong

26 Post author: jacob_cannell 05 February 2011 10:05AM

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Comment author: endoself 05 February 2011 06:31:06PM *  0 points [-]

Wait, Abraham actually existed? I highly doubt this. Do you have sources?

Anyway, how much of this is supposed to be literal? I highly doubt that the first AI will be much like me, so there is not reason to believe that this establishes any sort of upper bound on capability. It establishes a lower bound, but it gives no indication of how likely that lower bound is, especially because it gets its numbers from speculation about the capabilities of memristors.

It is good as an intuition pump. If this is the purpose, I suggest you take out some of the specifics of technology. This sets off conjunction fallacy detectors in my brain. You can try combating this with some disjunctions and antipredictions, such as showing other ways that technology might develop to show that this future is typical, despite the specifics of technology. Everything after the discussion of technology holds, given the premises and there is nothing there too dependent on the specifics for this to be useful.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 February 2011 06:37:51PM 2 points [-]

If Abraham did exist, it wasn't 1500 years ago. I assume the original post is talking about Muhammed, who was born around 1440 years ago and (unlike Abraham) was a Bedouin. I've seen some suggestion that Muhammed never existed, and was created as a mythical founder of the Empire and of Islam after the fact, but I think there's enough evidence that he existed.

Comment author: endoself 05 February 2011 06:43:06PM 1 point [-]

Oops, I didn't notice the "1500 years". Muhammed probably existed, and even if he didn't, a small group of people still created the memes, so the original point stands.

Comment author: blogospheroid 05 February 2011 06:40:12PM 0 points [-]

Even I thought he was talking about Muhammad, for whom there is historical evidence.