I'm talking about an ethos, a culture, where people talk like they do in this story:
That is what I meant, too.
Now, as for why no one has done this already: well, besides the "why", there is also the "who", the "what", the "where", and the "when". Who would have thought to try it before, and under what circumstances?
Some of those who read and believed the Class Project post 4 years ago.
To him and his colleagues at SI, the only really important problem is Friendly AI, and that (directly or indirectly) is what he's been spending his time on
And, given that it takers only "five whole minutes to think an original thought", how many thousands of original thoughts should he have come up with in 4 years? How many Einstein-style breakthroughs should he have made by now? How many has he?
Unless I misunderstand something, the Class Project post was a falsifiable model, and it has been falsified. Time to discard it?
Unless I misunderstand something, the Class Project post was a falsifiable model, and it has been falsified. Time to discard it?
It's a work of fiction, not a model.
Today's post, Class Project was originally published on 31 May 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Einstein's Superpowers, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.