asr comments on Risks of downloading alien AI via SETI search - Less Wrong

9 Post author: turchin 15 March 2013 10:25AM

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Comment author: asr 16 March 2013 02:09:54PM *  2 points [-]

Gwern: I think you understand this, but for the benefit of other readers:

The strategy of enumerate, run in parallel, and pick the first to halt doesn't give Kolmogorov complexity. It gives an upper bound. There might be some shorter program that will halt and give the appropriate output, but it just hasn't gotten there yet when you find the first thing that halts.