The FHI position on WBE is by no means uniform. The key questions are whether WBE research will lead to neuromorphic AI (NAI), whether WBE makes FAI more or less likey, and whether (WBE transition) followed by (AI transition) is more survivable than the other way round (and, of course, on the problems and solutions of WBE itself, eg Robin's nightmare scenario vs effective immortality).
My position is that successful WBE will make FAI tremendously easier (we can for instance tell the AI "do what this WBE program would tell you to do, if you ran it for a thousand subjective years" (similarly to a suggestion of Paul Christiano's), and the WBE would be able to keep pace with the AI's speed, and thus make a breakout more difficult). Other people at the FHI have different opinions, consistent with their different assessement of the risk of AI and the impact of WBE, and I won't put words in their mouths. Though one relevant fact is that getting NAI from partial WBE is generally considered to be harder by those who know the most of neuro-biology (and easiest by those who know the least).
Thanks Stuart.
In your e-mail to me, you estimated that these conflicting opinions added up to a "weak consensus towards WBE" within FHI. Since SI workshop participants' opinions added up to a weak consensus against WBE, there doesn't seem to be a strong case for trying to shift probabilities in either direction at this point.
Edit (2014-05-19): I just spoke with FHI academic project manager Andrew Snyder-Beattie, and he represents FHI as having a widespread consensus towards slowing progress on all artificial intelligence. He additionally says FH...
This is the team responsible for simulating the rat cortical column.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110308/full/news.2011.143.htm
The team is one of 6 that is being considered for at least 2 "FET Flagship" positions, which comes with all that funding. Each of the six competing teams is proposing to work on some kind of futuristic technology:http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/programme/fet/flagship/6pilots_en.html
Of course, word on the street is that academic neuroscientists don't think much of the project:
I think trying to influence the committee's decision potentially represents very low hanging fruit in politics as charity.
Even if academic neuroscientists don't think much of the project in its current state, it seems likely that $1.4 billion would end up attracting a lot of talent to this problem, and get us the first upload significantly sooner.
It's true that Less Wrong doesn't have a consensus position on whether to speed development of cell modeling and brain scanning technology or not. But I think if we have a discussion and a vote, we're significantly more likely than the committee to come up with the right decision for humanity. As far as I can tell, the committee will essentially be choosing at random. It shouldn't be hard for us to beat that.
Edit: But that's not to say that our estimate should be quick and dirty. In the spirit of holding off on proposing solutions, I discourage anyone from taking a firm public position on this topic for now.
In terms of avenues for influence, here are a few ideas off the top of my head:
We, and the folks at the Future of Humanity Institute, SI, and other groups, seem to spend a lot of time thinking about what would happen in the ideal scenario in terms of the order in which technologies are developed and how they are deployed. I think there is a good case for also investing in the complementary good of trying to actually influence the world towards a more ideal scenario.