For almost any goal an AI had, the AI would make more progress towards this goal if it became smarter. As an AI became smarter it would become better at making itself smarter. This process continues. Imagine if it were possible to quickly make a copy of yourself that had a slightly different brain. You could then test the new self and see if it was an improvement. If it was you could make this new self the permanent you. You could do this to quickly become much, much smarter. An AI could do this.
For almost any goal an AI had, the AI would make more progress towards this goal if it became smarter.
True, but there it is likely that there are diminishing returns in how much adding more intelligence can help with other goals, including the instrumental goal of becoming smarter.
As an AI became smarter it would become better at making itself smarter.
Nope, doesn't follow.
I've been going through the AIFoom debate, and both sides makes sense to me. I intend to continue, but I'm wondering if there're already insights in LW culture I can get if I just ask for them.
My understanding is as follows:
The difference between a chimp and a human is only 5 million years of evolution. That's not time enough for many changes.
Eliezer takes this as proof that the difference between the two in the brain architecture can't be much. Thus, you can have a chimp-intelligent AI that doesn't do much, and then with some very small changes, suddenly get a human-intelligent AI and FOOM!
Robin takes the 5-million year gap as proof that the significant difference between chimps and humans is only partly in the brain architecture. Evolution simply can't be responsible for most of the relevant difference; the difference must be elsewhere.
So he concludes that when our ancestors got smart enough for language, culture became a thing. Our species stumbled across various little insights into life, and these got passed on. An increasingly massive base of cultural content, made of very many small improvements is largely responsible for the difference between chimps and humans.
Culture assimilated new information into humans much faster than evolution could.
So he concludes that you can get a chimp-level AI, and to get up to human-level will take, not a very few insights, but a very great many, each one slowly improving the computer's intelligence. So no Foom, it'll be a gradual thing.
So I think I've figured out the question. Is there a commonly known answer, or are there insights towards the same?