Consider the following three target-definitions for a superhuman optimizer:
a) one patterned on the current preferences of a typical three-year-old
b) one patterned on the current preferences of a typical thirty-year old
c) one that is actually safe to implement (aka "Friendly")
I understand you to be saying that the gulf between A and C is enormous, and I quite agree. I have not the foggiest beginnings of a clue how one might go about building a system that reliably gets from A to C and am not at all convinced it's possible.
I would say that the gulf between B and C is similarly enormous, and I'm equally ignorant of how to build a system that spans it. But this whole discussion (and all discussions of CEV-based FAI) presumes that this gulf is spannable in practice. If we can span the B-C gulf, I take that as strong evidence indicating that we can span the A-C gulf.
Put differently: to talk seriously about implementing an FAI based on the CEV of thirty-year-olds, but at the same time dismiss the idea of doing so based on the CEV of three-year-olds, seems roughly analogous to seriously setting out to build a device that lets me teleport from Boston to Denver without occupying the intervening space, but dismissing the idea of building one that goes from Boston to San Francisco as a laughable fantasy because, as everyone knows, San Francisco is further away than Denver.
That's why I said I don't understand what you think the extractor is doing. I can see where, if I had a specific theory of how a teleporter operates, I might confidently say that it can span 2k miles but not 3k miles, arbitrary as that sounds in the absence of such a theory. Similarly, if I had a specific theory of how a CEV-extractor operates, I might confidently say it can work safely on a 30-year-old mind but not a 3-year-old. It's only in the absence of such a theory that such a claim is arbitrary.
It seems likely to me that the CEV of the 30-year-old would be friendly and the CEV of the three-year-old would not be, but as you say at this point it's hard to say much for sure.
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