Will the ems save us from the robots?

Stuart_Armstrong

At the FHI, we are currently working on a project around whole brain emulations (WBE), or uploads. One important question is if getting to whole brain emulations first would make subsequent AGI creation

more or less likely to happen,
more or less likely to be survivable.

If you have any opinions or ideas on this, please submit them here. No need to present an organised overall argument; we'll be doing that. What would help most is any unusual suggestion, that we might not have thought of, for how WBE would affect AGI.

EDIT: Many thanks to everyone who suggested ideas here, they've been taken under consideration.

more or less likely to happen,
more or less likely to be survivable.

EDIT: Many thanks to everyone who suggested ideas here, they've been taken under consideration.

A boost to neuroimaging goes into the public tech base, accelerating all WBE projects without any special advantage to the safety-oriented.

I don't understand why you say that. Wouldn't safety-oriented WBE projects have greater requirements for neuroimaging? As I mentioned before, pushing neuroimaging now reduces the likelihood that by the time cell modeling and computing hardware let us do brain-like simulations, neuroimaging isn't ready for hi-fi scanning so the only projects that can proceed will be lo-fi simulations.

The thought with decision theory is that the combination of its direct effects, and its role in bringing talented people to work on AI safety, will be much more targeted.

It may well be highly targeted, but still a bad idea. For example, suppose pushing decision theory raises the probability of FAI to 10x (compared to not pushing decision theory), and the probability of UFAI to 1.1x, but the base probability of FAI is too small for pushing decision theory to be a net benefit. Conversely, pushing neuroimaging may help safety-oriented WBE projects only slightly more than non-safety-oriented, but still worth doing.

But I would still rather build fungible resources and analytic capacities in that situation than push neuroimaging forward, given my current state of knowledge.

I certainly agree with that, but I don't understand why SIAI isn't demanding a similar level of analysis before pushing decision theory.

I don't understand why you say that. Wouldn't safety-oriented WBE projects have greater requirements for neuroimaging? As I mentioned before, pushing neuroimaging now reduces the likelihood that by the time cell modeling and computing hardware let us do brain-like simulations, neuroimaging isn't ready for hi-fi scanning so the only projects that can proceed will be lo-fi simulations.

In the race to first AI/WBE, developing a technology privately gives the developer a speed advantage, ceteris paribus. The demand for hi-fi WBE rather than lo-fi WBE or brai... (read more)