Slowing Moore's Law: Why You Might Want To and How You Would Do It

gwern

In this essay I argue the following:

Brain emulation requires enormous computing power; enormous computing power requires further progression of Moore’s law; further Moore’s law relies on large-scale production of cheap processors in ever more-advanced chip fabs; cutting-edge chip fabs are both expensive and vulnerable to state actors (but not non-state actors such as terrorists). Therefore: the advent of brain emulation can be delayed by global regulation of chip fabs.

Full essay: http://www.gwern.net/Slowing%20Moore%27s%20Law

In this essay I argue the following:

Brain emulation requires enormous computing power; enormous computing power requires further progression of Moore’s law; further Moore’s law relies on large-scale production of cheap processors in ever more-advanced chip fabs; cutting-edge chip fabs are both expensive and vulnerable to state actors (but not non-state actors such as terrorists). Therefore: the advent of brain emulation can be delayed by global regulation of chip fabs.

Full essay: http://www.gwern.net/Slowing%20Moore%27s%20Law

This is an important generalization, but there are also many counterexamples in our use of biotech in agriculture, medicine, chemical production, etc. We can't design a custom cell, but Craig Venter can create a new 'minimal' genome from raw feedstuffs by copying from nature, and then add further enhancements to it. We produce alcohol using living organisms rather than a more efficient chemical process, and so forth. It looks like humans will be able to radically enhance human intelligence genetically through statistical study of human variation rather than mechanistic understanding of different pathways.

Creating an emulation involves a lot of further work, but one might put it in a reference class with members like the extensive work needed to get DNA synthesis, sequencing, and other biotechnologies to the point of producing Craig Venter's 'minimal genome' cells.

It looks like humans will be able to radically enhance human intelligence genetically through statistical study of human variation rather than mechanistic understanding of different pathways.

Sure - but again, it looks as though that will mostly be relatively insignificant and happen too late. We should still do it. It won't prevent a transition to engineered machine intelligence, though it might smooth the transition a little.

As I argue in my Against Whole Brain Emulation essay the idea is more wishful thinking and marketing than anything else.

Whole b... (read more)

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Slowing Moore's Law: Why You Might Want To and How You Would Do It

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Slowing Moore's Law: Why You Might Want To and How You Would Do It

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