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

Google's revenues are $29 billion and are dwarfed by such things as walmart ($258 billion) or BP ($308 billion). They are not that important yet.

Google's revenues are $29 billion and are dwarfed by such things as walmart ($258 billion) or BP ($308 billion). They are not that important yet.

The question says to compare with the first-movers of the industrial revolution, though.

So, this isn't Google vs Walmart but rather Larry Page vs James Watt.

It is well known that wealth inequality is now at record levels. Equally well known is that some of the richest people top pioneering tech companies. The only debate I see is over what "much larger fraction" means - and that seems to be a rather pointless thing to argue about.

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Hanson Debating Yudkowsky, Jun 2011

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Hanson Debating Yudkowsky, Jun 2011

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