And now for a truly horrible thought:
which is why the hordes of would-be meddling dabblers haven't killed us all already.
I wonder to what extent we've been "saved" so far by anthropics. Okay, that's probably not the dominant effect. I mean, yeah, it's quite clear that AI is, as you note, REALLY hard.
But still, I can't help but wonder just how little or much that's there.
If you think anthropics has saved us from AI many times, you ought to believe we will likely die soon, because anthropics doesn't constrain the future, only the past. Each passing year without catastrophe should weaken your faith in the anthropic explanation.
A friend of mine is about to launch himself heavily into the realm of AI programming. The details of his approach aren't important; probabilities dictate that he is unlikely to score a major success. He's asked me for advice, however, on how to design a safe(r) AI. I've been pointing him in the right directions and sending him links to useful posts on this blog and the SIAI.
Do people here have any recommendations they'd like me to pass on? Hopefully, these may form the basis of a condensed 'warning pack' for other AI makers.
Addendum: Advice along the lines of "don't do it" is vital and good, but unlikely to be followed. Coding will nearly certainly happen; is there any way of making it less genocidally risky?