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

Maybe somebody should let them know... since they don't come to the site anymore, that would be hard, but if you know who the person's friends are, you could ask if they'll pass the message on.

I think that would be pretty pointless; if he could think that after reading the original, the amendments aren't going to impress him. If he's that careless a reader, LW may be better off without him. (I did read his comment: I subscribe via RSS to the comments on every article I post.) If you were to track him down and ask him to re-read, I'd give <35% that he'd actually come back and participate (where participate is defined as eg. post >=1 comment a month for the next 6 months).

If you'd like, I will read your stuff before you post it if you'll read mine - we can trade each other pages 1 for 1. That should reduce the risk of this happening to a much lower level.

Nah, I'm fine with #lesswrong as 'beta readers', as it were.

If he's that careless a reader, LW may be better off without him.

I don't think the problem was careless reading. When you open with a comment about attacking chip fabs without specifying that you mean a government level military and your audience is mainly in a country where everyone has been bathed in the fear of terrorism for years, this is bound to trigger mind kill reactions. You could argue "Good LW'ers should stay rational while thinking about terrorism." but aside from the fact that everyone has flaws and that's a pretty common one, m... (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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