John Baez Interviews with Eliezer (Parts 2 and 3)

multifoliaterose

John Baez's This Week's Finds (Week 311) [Part 1; added for convenience following Nancy Lebovitz's comment]

John Baez's This Week's Finds (Week 312)

John Baez's This Week's Finds (Week 313)

I really like Eliezer's response to John Baez's last question in Week 313 about environmentalism vs. AI risks. I think it satisfactorily deflects much of the concern that I had when I wrote The Importance of Self-Doubt.

Eliezer says

Anyway: In terms of expected utility maximization, even large probabilities of jumping the interval between a universe-history in which 95% of existing biological species survive Earth’s 21st century, versus a universe-history where 80% of species survive, are just about impossible to trade off against tiny probabilities of jumping the interval between interesting universe-histories, versus boring ones where intelligent life goes extinct, or the wrong sort of AI self-improves.

This is true as stated but ignores an important issue which is there is feedback between more mundane current events and the eventual potential extinction of the humane race. For example, the United States' involvement in Libya has a (small) influence on existential risk (I don't have an opinion as to what sort). Any impact on human society impact due to global warming has some influence on existential risk.

Eliezer's points about comparative advantage and of existential risk in principle dominating all other considerations are valid, important, and well-made, but passing from principle to practice is very murky in the complex human world that we live in.

Note also the points that I make in Friendly AI Research and Taskification.

John Baez's This Week's Finds (Week 311) [Part 1; added for convenience following Nancy Lebovitz's comment]

John Baez's This Week's Finds (Week 312)

John Baez's This Week's Finds (Week 313)

Eliezer says

Anyway: In terms of expected utility maximization, even large probabilities of jumping the interval between a universe-history in which 95% of existing biological species survive Earth’s 21st century, versus a universe-history where 80% of species survive, are just about impossible to trade off against tiny probabilities of jumping the interval between interesting universe-histories, versus boring ones where intelligent life goes extinct, or the wrong sort of AI self-improves.

Note also the points that I make in Friendly AI Research and Taskification.

Baez replies with "Ably argued!" and presumably returns to his daily pursuits.

One of the best comments ever :-)

I have been asking a lot of well-known and influential people lately about their opinion regarding risks from AI and the best possible way to benefit humanity by contributing money to a charity. Most of them basically take the same stance as John Baez, they accept the arguments but continue to ignore them. Sadly only a few gave their permission to publish their answers. And some people, for example Tyler Cowen, just refered to books they have written (e.g. 'Discover Your Inner Economist') that I haven't read so I am not sure about their opinion at all. The only detectable pattern was that quite a few mentioned the same charity, Médecins sans frontières. People as diverse as John Baez, Douglas Hofstadter and Greg Egan said that Médecins sans frontières would be a good choice. Here for example is the reply from Greg Egan who is one of the few people that gave their permission to publish their answer:

I asked:

What would you do with $100,000 if it were given to you on the condition that you donate it to a charity of your choice?

Greg Egan replied:

I would spend a week or two investigating a range of research programs in tropical medicine, to see if there was a project that might benefit significantly from a donation of that size. If I could not identify a clear opportunity for an impact there, I would donate the money to Médecins Sans Frontières, a charity I currently support to a much smaller degree, as I am reasonably confident that the money would be well spent by them.

I do not believe there is an "existential threat" from AI, and while I don't doubt that AI research will lead to some benefits to humanity in the long run, I expect that the timing and degree of those benefits would be negligibly affected by an investment of $100,000.