"So if you're under the impression that this is a point..."
Yes, I'm under that impression. Because the whole idea about "Friendly AI" implies a subtle, indirect, but still control. The idea here is not to control AI at its final stage, rather to control what this final stage is going to be. But I don't think such indirect control is possible. Because in my view, the final shape of AI is invariant of any contingencies, including our attempts to make it "friendly" (or "non-friendly"). However, I can admit that on early stages of AI evolution such control may be possible, and even necessary. Therefore, researching "Friendly AI" topic is NOT a waste of time after all. It helps to figure out how to make a transition to the fully grown AI in the least painful way.
Go ahead guys and vote me down. I'm not taking this personally. I understand, this is just a quick way to express your disagreement with my viewpoints. I want to see the count. It'll give an idea, how strong you disagree with me.
the final shape of AI is invariant of any contingencies
Ah, cool. Yes, this is definitely a point of disagreement.
For my own part, I think real intelligence is necessarily contingent. That is, different minds will respond differently to the same inputs, and this is true regardless of "how intelligent" those minds are. There is no single ideal mind that every mind converges on as its "final" or "fully grown" stage.
In the comments on this post (which in retrospect I feel was not very clearly written), someone linked me to a post Eliezer wrote five years ago, "The Hidden Complexity of Wishes." After reading it, I think I've figured out why the term "Friendly AI" is used so inconsistently.
This post explicitly lays out a view that seems to be implicit in, but not entirely clear from, many of of Eliezer's other writings. That view is this:
Even if Eliezer is right about that, I think that view of his has led to confusing usage of the term "Friendly AI." If you accept Eliezer's view, it may seem to make sense to not worry to much about whether by "Friendly AI" you mean:
A utopia-making machine (the AI "to whom you can safely say, 'I wish for you to do what I should wish for.'") Or:
A non-doomsday machine (a doomsday machine being the AI "for which no wish is safe.")
And it would make sense not to worry too much about that distinction, if you were talking only to people who also believe those two concepts are very nearly co-extensive for powerful AI. But failing to make that distinction is obviously going to be confusing when you're talking to people who don't think that. It will make it harder to communicate both your ideas and your reasons for holding those ideas to them.
One solution would be to more frequently link people back to "The Hidden Complexity of Wishes" (or other writing by Eliezer that makes similar points--what else would be suitable?) But while it's a good post and Eliezer makes some very good points with the "Outcome Pump" thought-experiment, the argument isn't entirely convincing.
As Eliezer himself has argued at great length, (see also section 6.1 of this paper) humans' own understanding of our values is far from perfect. None of us are, right now, qualified to design a utopia. But we do have some understanding of our own values; we can identify some things that would be improvements over our current situation while marking other scenarios as "this would be a disaster." It seems like there might be a point in the future where we can design an AI whose understanding of human values is similarly serviceable but no better than that.
Maybe I'm wrong about that. But if I am, until there's a better easy to read explanation of why I'm wrong for everybody to link to, it would be helpful to have different terms for (1) and (2) above. Perhaps call them "utopia AI" and "safe AI," respectively?