Also, said hypothesis stems from a model of the world that has certain properties, including: ...
Eliezer Yudkowsky says that, "Exponentials are Kurzweil's thing. They aren't dangerous."
But does it follow that:
Your hypothesis seems to include itself as a premise? Is this correct? I am sorry that I have to ask this, I lack a lot of education :-(
The hypothesis that a Singularity is possible/going to happen predicts the observation of a Singularity under certain conditions...
Yes, I asked if it would be rational to demand the proponents of a Singularity to be more specific by naming some concrete conditions.
..."within a few years or less of the first smarter-than-human AI"...
I am sorry, this sounds a bit like, "the world will end a few years or less after the first antimatter asteroid has been detected to be on a collision course with earth". Maybe it is just my complete lack of training in matters of rationality that makes me think so. I am really sorry in that case :-(
...before some year (I've usually heard 2100)...
John did ask about timescales and my answer was that I had no logical way of knowing the answer to that question and was reluctant to just make one up.
Does this mean that a hypothesis, or prediction, does not need to be specific about its possible timeframe? We just have to wait? At what point do we then decide to turn to other problems? Maybe I am completely confused here, but how do you update your risk estimations if you can't tell when a risk ceases to be imminent?
If one or both of those conditions are met and there's still no Singularity, that hypothesis will need to be revised/thrown out.
Since, as far as I can tell, in your hypothesis, smarter-than-human AI is strongly correlated with the occurrence of a Singularity, would it be reasonable to name some concrete conditions required to enable such a technology?
To be clear, I am just trying to figure out how the proponents of explosive recursive self-improvement can be surprised by data. Maybe this is perfectly clear for everyone else, I am sorry, I don't know where else to ask about this.
Eliezer Yudkowsky says that, "Exponentials are Kurzweil's thing. They aren't dangerous."
Different people who believe in some form of Singularity disagree on the specifics. By trying to capture every view, I fear I have mangled them all.
Your hypothesis seems to include itself as a premise? Is this correct? I am sorry that I have to ask this, I lack a lot of education :-(
If you define "Singularity" as "an AI going to superintelligence quickly" then yeah, it does, and that shouldn't be a premise. I was defining "Singu...
Today's post, Beware the Unsurprised was originally published on May 3, 2007. A summary (from the LW wiki):
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