Hanson Debating Yudkowsky, Jun 2011

XiXiDu

On Wednesday I debated my ex-co-blogger Eliezer Yudkowsky at a private Jane Street Capital event (crude audio here, from 4:45; better video here [as of July 14]).

I “won” in the sense of gaining more audience votes — the vote was 45-40 (him to me) before, and 32-33 after the debate. That makes me two for two, after my similar “win” over Bryan Caplan (42-10 before, 25-20 after). This probably says little about me, however, since contrarians usually “win” such debates.

Our topic was: Compared to the farming and industrial revolutions, intelligence explosion first-movers will quickly control a much larger fraction of their new world. He was pro, I was con. We also debated this subject here on Overcoming Bias from June to December 2008. Let me now try to summarize my current position.

[...]

It thus seems quite unlikely that one AI team could find an architectural innovation powerful enough to let it go from tiny to taking over the world within a few weeks.

Link: overcomingbias.com/2011/07/debating-yudkowsky.html

On Wednesday I debated my ex-co-blogger Eliezer Yudkowsky at a private Jane Street Capital event (crude audio here, from 4:45; better video here [as of July 14]).

I “won” in the sense of gaining more audience votes — the vote was 45-40 (him to me) before, and 32-33 after the debate. That makes me two for two, after my similar “win” over Bryan Caplan (42-10 before, 25-20 after). This probably says little about me, however, since contrarians usually “win” such debates.

Our topic was: Compared to the farming and industrial revolutions, intelligence explosion first-movers will quickly control a much larger fraction of their new world. He was pro, I was con. We also debated this subject here on Overcoming Bias from June to December 2008. Let me now try to summarize my current position.

[...]

It thus seems quite unlikely that one AI team could find an architectural innovation powerful enough to let it go from tiny to taking over the world within a few weeks.

Link: overcomingbias.com/2011/07/debating-yudkowsky.html

He will probably start arguing for the correct position once it is supported enough as not to be destroyed by incorrect positions.

The main thing I can recall from from the 2008 debate mentioned was Hanson's position being essentially destroyed by Hanson via support that made no sense, making Eliezer largely redundant.

Hanson's position being essentially destroyed by Hanson via support that made no sense...

As far as I can tell Hanson does not disagree with Yudkowsky except for the probability of risks from AI. Yudkowsky says that existential risks from AI are not under 5%. Has Yudkowsky been able to support this assertion sufficiently? Hanson only needs to show that it is unreasonable to assume that the probability is larger than 5% and my personal perception is that he was able to do so.

I have already posted various arguments for why I believe that the case for risks... (read more)

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Hanson Debating Yudkowsky, Jun 2011

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Hanson Debating Yudkowsky, Jun 2011

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