I'm giving a talk to the Boulder Future Salon in Boulder, Colorado in a few weeks on the Intelligence Explosion hypothesis. I've given it once before in Korea but I think the crowd I'm addressing will be more savvy than the last one (many of them have met Eliezer personally). It could end up being important, so I was wondering if anyone considers themselves especially capable of playing Devil's Advocate so I could shape up a bit before my talk? I'd like there to be no real surprises.
I'd be up for just messaging back and forth or skyping, whatever is convenient.
Only by ignoring the fundamental question: Is it true?
The point is that all object-level arguments for and against these scenarios, even if you call them "probability estimates", are ultimately based on intuitions which are difficult to formalize or quantify.
The scenarios hypthesized by the Singularitarians are extreme, both in the magnitude of the effect they are claimed to entail, and in the the highly conjunctive object-level arguments that are used to argue for them. Common sense rationality tells us that "extraordinary claims demand exceptional evidence". How do we evaluate whether th... (read more)