On Wednesday I debated my ex-co-blogger Eliezer Yudkowsky at a private Jane Street Capital event (crude audio here, from 4:45; better video here [as of July 14]).
I “won” in the sense of gaining more audience votes — the vote was 45-40 (him to me) before, and 32-33 after the debate. That makes me two for two, after my similar “win” over Bryan Caplan (42-10 before, 25-20 after). This probably says little about me, however, since contrarians usually “win” such debates.
Our topic was: Compared to the farming and industrial revolutions, intelligence explosion first-movers will quickly control a much larger fraction of their new world. He was pro, I was con. We also debated this subject here on Overcoming Bias from June to December 2008. Let me now try to summarize my current position.
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It thus seems quite unlikely that one AI team could find an architectural innovation powerful enough to let it go from tiny to taking over the world within a few weeks.
I don't buy it at that level of confidence. Robin says the Manhattan Project was an anomaly in wartime, and that past efforts to restrict the spread of technologies like encryption and supercomputers didn't work for long (I'd say the cost-benefit for secrecy here was much, much worse than for human-level AI/WBE). My reply is that a delay of 4 years, like that between the US and Soviet nuclear tests, would be a long, long time for WBE or human-level AI to drive a local intelligence explosion. Software is easier to steal, but even so.
Your reply is focused on keeping secrets. I meant my comment to apply to the second claim - the one about governments being "too stupid". That claim might be right - but it is not obvious. Government departments focused on this sort of thing (of which there are several) will understand - and no doubt already understand. The issue is more whether the communication lines are free, whether the top military brass take thier own boffins seriously - and whether they go on to get approval from head office.
As for secrecy - the NSA has a long history ... (read more)