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[LINK] John Baez Interview with astrophysicist Gregory Benford — LessWrong

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[LINK] John Baez Interview with astrophysicist Gregory Benford

by multifoliaterose

2nd Mar 2011

1 min read

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The content of John Baez's This Week's Finds: Week 310:

Includes

Discussion of global warming and geoengineering.
A reference to a paper by David Wolpert and Gregory Benford on Newcomb's paradox

Note: The upcoming This Week's Finds: Week 311 is an interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky by John Baez.

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Since XiXiDu also asked this question on my blog, I answered over there.

I tell you that all you have to do is to read the LessWrong Sequences and the publications written by the SIAI to agree that working on AI is much more important than climate change, are you going to take the time and do it?

I have read most of those things, and indeed I've been interested in AI and the possibility of a singularity at least since college (say, 1980). That's why I interviewed Yudkowsky.

[+]XiXiDu15y-90

2XiXiDu15y

That answers my questions. There are only two options, either there is no strong case for risks from AI or a world-class mathematician like you didn't manage to understand the arguments after trying for 30 years. For me that means that I can only hope to be much smarter than you (to understand the evidence myself) or to conclude that Yudkowsky et al. are less intelligent than you are. No offense, but what other option is there?