rwallace comments on Connecting Your Beliefs (a call for help) - Less Wrong

24 Post author: lukeprog 20 November 2011 05:18AM

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Comment author: rwallace 21 November 2011 10:16:55AM 3 points [-]

That's awfully vague. "Whatever window of time we had", what does that mean?

The current state of the world is unusually conducive to technological progress. We don't know how long this state of affairs will last. Maybe a long time, maybe a short time. To fail to make progress as rapidly as we can is to gamble the entire future of intelligent life on it lasting a long time, without evidence that it will do so. I don't think that's a good gamble.

There's one kind of "technological progress" that SIAI opposes as far as I can tell: working on AGI without an explicit focus on Friendliness.

I have seen claims to the contrary from a number of people, from Eliezer himself a number of years ago up to another reply to your comment right now. If SIAI were to officially endorse the position you just suggested, my assessment of their expected utility would significantly increase.

Comment author: Morendil 21 November 2011 01:45:05PM 3 points [-]

Well, SIAI isn't necessarily a homogenous bunch of people, with respect to what they oppose or endorse, but did you look for instance at Michael Anissimov's entries on MNT? (Focusing on that because it's the topic of Risto's comment and you seem to see that as a confirmation of your thesis.) You don't get the impression that he thinks it's a bad idea, quite the contrary: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/category/nanotechnology/

Here is Eliezer on the SL4 mailing list:

If you solve the FAI problem, you probably solve the nanotech problem. If you solve the nanotech problem, you probably make the AI problem much worse. My preference for solving the AI problem as quickly as possible has nothing to do with the relative danger of AI and nanotech. It's about the optimal ordering of AI and nanotech.

The Luddites of our times are (for instance) groups like the publishing and music industries, the use of that label to describe the opinions of people affiliated with SIAI just doesn't make sense IMO.

Comment author: MichaelAnissimov 06 December 2011 08:22:56PM *  1 point [-]

Human-implemented molecular nanotechnology is a bad idea. I just talk about it to attract people in who think it's important. MNT knowledge is a good filter/generator for SL3 and beyond thinkers.

MNT without friendly superintelligence would be nothing but a disaster.

It's true that SIAI isn't homogeneous though. For instance, Anna is much more optimistic about uploads than I am personally.

Comment author: rwallace 22 November 2011 12:00:41AM 1 point [-]

Thanks for the link, yes, that does seem to be a different opinion (and some very interesting posts).

I agree with you about the publishing and music industries. I consider current rampant abuse of intellectual property law to be a bigger threat than the Singularity meme, sufficiently so that if your comparative advantage is in politics, opposing that abuse probably has the highest expected utility of anything you could be doing.

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