Most planning around AI risk seems to start from the premise that superintelligence will come from de novo AGI before whole brain emulation becomes possible. I haven't seen any analysis that assumes both uploads-first and the AI FOOM thesis (Edit: apparently I fail at literature searching), a deficiency that I'll try to get a start on correcting in this post.
It is likely possible to use evolutionary algorithms to efficiently modify uploaded brains. If so, uploads would likely be able to set off an intelligence explosion by running evolutionary algorithms on themselves, selecting for something like higher general intelligence.
Since brains are poorly understood, it would likely be very difficult to select for higher intelligence without causing significant value drift. Thus, setting off an intelligence explosion in that way would probably produce unfriendly AI if done carelessly. On the other hand, at some point, the modified upload would reach a point where it is capable of figuring out how to improve itself without causing a significant amount of further value drift, and it may be possible to reach that point before too much value drift had already taken place. The expected amount of value drift can be decreased by having long generations between iterations of the evolutionary algorithm, to give the improved brains more time to figure out how to modify the evolutionary algorithm to minimize further value drift.
Another possibility is that such an evolutionary algorithm could be used to create brains that are smarter than humans but not by very much, and hopefully with values not too divergent from ours, who would then stop using the evolutionary algorithm and start using their intellects to research de novo Friendly AI, if that ends up looking easier than continuing to run the evolutionary algorithm without too much further value drift.
The strategies of using slow iterations of the evolutionary algorithm, or stopping it after not too long, require coordination among everyone capable of making such modifications to uploads. Thus, it seems safer for whole brain emulation technology to be either heavily regulated or owned by a monopoly, rather than being widely available and unregulated. This closely parallels the AI openness debate, and I'd expect people more concerned with bad actors relative to accidents to disagree.
With de novo artificial superintelligence, the overwhelmingly most likely outcomes are the optimal achievable outcome (if we manage to align its goals with ours) and extinction (if we don't). But uploads start out with human values, and when creating a superintelligence by modifying uploads, the goal would be to not corrupt them too much in the process. Since its values could get partially corrupted, an intelligence explosion that starts with an upload seems much more likely to result in outcomes that are both significantly worse than optimal and significantly better than extinction. Since human brains also already have a capacity for malice, this process also seems slightly more likely to result in outcomes worse than extinction.
The early ways to upload brains will probably be destructive, and may be very risky. Thus the first uploads may be selected for high risk-tolerance. Running an evolutionary algorithm on an uploaded brain would probably involve creating a large number of psychologically broken copies, since the average change to a brain will be negative. Thus the uploads that run evolutionary algorithms on themselves will be selected for not being horrified by this. Both of these selection effects seem like they would select against people who would take caution and goal stability seriously (uploads that run evolutionary algorithms on themselves would also be selected for being okay with creating and deleting spur copies, but this doesn't obviously correlate in either direction with caution). This could be partially mitigated by a monopoly on brain emulation technology. A possible (but probably smaller) source of positive selection is that currently, people who are enthusiastic about uploading their brains correlate strongly with people who are concerned about AI safety, and this correlation may continue once whole brain emulation technology is actually available.
Assuming that hardware speed is not close to being a limiting factor for whole brain emulation, emulations will be able to run at much faster than human speed. This should make emulations better able to monitor the behavior of AIs. Unless we develop ways of evaluating the capabilities of human brains that are much faster than giving them time to attempt difficult tasks, running evolutionary algorithms on brain emulations could only be done very slowly in subjective time (even though it may be quite fast in objective time), which would give emulations a significant advantage in monitoring such a process.
Although there are effects going in both directions, it seems like the uploads-first scenario is probably safer than de novo AI. If this is the case, then it might make sense to accelerate technologies that are needed for whole brain emulation if there are tractable ways of doing so. On the other hand, it is possible that technologies that are useful for whole brain emulation would also be useful for neuromorphic AI, which is probably very unsafe, since it is not amenable to formal verification or being given explicit goals (and unlike emulations, they don't start off already having human goals). Thus, it is probably important to be careful about not accelerating non-WBE neuromorphic AI while attempting to accelerate whole brain emulation. For instance, it seems plausible to me that getting better models of neurons would be useful for creating neuromorphic AIs while better brain scanning would not, and both technologies are necessary for brain uploading, so if that is true, it may make sense to work on improving brain scanning but not on improving neural models.
I think that superAI via uploading in inherent safe solution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherent_safety It also could go wrong in many ways, but it is not its default mode.
Even if it kill all humans, it will be one human which will survive.
Even if his values will evolve it will be natural evolution of human values.
As most human beings don't like to be alone, he would create new friends that is human simulations. So even worst cases are not as bad as paper clip maximiser.
It is also feasible plan which consist of many clear steps, one of them is choosing and educating right person for uploading. He should be educated in ethics, math, rationality, brain biology etc. I think he is reading LW and this comment))
This idea could be upgraded to be even more safe. One way is to upload a group of several people which will be able to control each other and also produce mutual collective intelligence.
Another idea is broke Super AI into center and circumference. In the centre we put uploaded mind of very rational human, which make important decisions and keep values, and in periphery we put many Tool AIs, which do a lot of dirty work.
Unless it self-modifies to the point where you're stretching any meaningful definition of "human".
Again, for sufficiently broad definitions of "natural evolution".
If we're to believe Hanson, the first (and possibly only) wave of... (read more)