Karmakaiser comments on The Singularity Institute's Arrogance Problem - Less Wrong

63 Post author: lukeprog 18 January 2012 10:30PM

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Comment author: lukeprog 19 January 2012 01:08:40AM *  18 points [-]

I appreciate the tone and content of your comment. Responding to a few specific points...

You claim that SIAI people know insane amounts of science and update constantly, but you can't even get 1 out of 200 volunteers to spread some links?!

There are many things we aren't (yet) good at. There are too many things about which to check the science and test things and update. In fact, our ability to collaborate successfully with volunteers on things has greatly improved in the last month, in part because we implemented some advice from the GWWC gang, who are very good at collaborating with volunteers.

the only publicly visible person who strikes me as having some awesome powers is you

Eliezer strikes me as an easy candidate for having awesome powers. CFAI, while confusingly written, was way ahead of its time, and what Eliezer figured out in the early 2000s is slowly becoming a mainstream position accepted by, e.g., Google's AGI team. The Sequences are simply awesome. And he did manage to write the most popular Harry Potter fanfic of all time.

Finally, I suspect many people's doubts about SIAI's horsepower could be best addressed by arranging a single 2-hour conversation between them and Carl Shulman. But you'd have to visit the Bay Area, and we can't afford to have him do nothing but conversations, anyway. If you want a taste, you can read his comment history, which consists of him writing the exactly correct thing to say in almost every comment he's made for the past several years.

Aaaaaaaaaand now Carl will slap me for setting expectations too high. But I don't think I'm exaggerating that much. Maybe I'll get by with another winky-face.

;)

Comment author: Karmakaiser 19 January 2012 03:31:14PM 20 points [-]

Eliezer strikes me as an easy candidate for having awesome powers. CFAI, while confusingly written, was way ahead of its time, and what Eliezer figured out in the early 2000s is slowly becoming a mainstream position accepted by, e.g., Google's AGI team. The Sequences are simply awesome. And he did manage to write the most popular Harry Potter fanfic of all time.

I wasn't aware of Google's AGI team accepting CFAI. Is there a link of organizations that consider the Friendly AI issue important?

Comment author: jacob_cannell 03 March 2012 05:19:30AM 3 points [-]

I wasn't even aware of "Google's AGI team" . .

Comment author: lukeprog 19 October 2012 12:55:02AM 0 points [-]

Update: please see here.