The Charlie Stross example seems to be less than ideal. Much of what Stross has wrote about touches upon or deals intensely with issues connected to runaway AI. For example, the central premise of "Singularity Sky" involves an AI in the mid 20th century going from stuck in a lab to godlike in possibly a few seconds. His short story "Antibodies" focuses on the idea that very bad fast burns occur very frequently. He also has at least one (unpublished) story the central premises of which is that Von Neumann and Turing proved that P=NP and that the entire cold war was actually a way of keeping lots of weapons online ready to nuke any rogue AIs.
Note also that you mention Greg Egan who has also wrote fiction in which rogue AIs and bad nanotech make things very unpleasant (see for example Crystal Nights).
As to the other people you mention as to why they aren't very worried about the possibilities that Eliezer takes seriously, at least one person on your list (Kurzweil) is an incredible optimist and not much of a rationalist and so it seems extremely unlikely that he would ever become convinced that any risk situation was of high likelyhood unless the evidence for the risk was close to overwhelming.
MWI, I've read this sequence and it seems that Eliezer makes one of the strongest cases for Many-Worlds that I've seen. However, I know that there are a lot of people who have thought about this issue and have much more physics background and have not reached this conclusion. I'm therefore extremely uncertain about MWI. So what should one do if one doesn't know much about this? In this case, the answer is pretty easy, since MWI doesn't alter actual behavior much (unless you are intending to engage in quantum suicide or the like). So figuring out whether Eliezer is correct about MWI should not be a high priority, except in so far as it provides a possible data point for deciding if Eliezer is correct about other things.
Advanced real-world molecular nanotechnology - Of the points you bring up this one seems to me to be the most unlikely to be actually correct. There are a lot of technical barriers to grey goo and most of the people actually working with nanotech don't seem to see that sort of situation as very likely. But it also seems clear that that doesn't mean that there aren't many other possible things that molecular nanotech could do that wouldn't make things very unpleasant for us. Here, Eliezer is by far not the only person worried about this. See for example, this article which is a few years of date but does show that there's serious worry in this regards by academics and governments.
Runaway AI/AI going FOOM - This is potentially the most interesting of your points simply because it is so much more unique to the SIAI and Eliezer. So what can one do to figure out if this is correct? One thing to do is to examine the arguments and claims being made in detail. And see what other experts think on the subject. In this context, most AI people seem to consider this to be an unlikely problem, so maybe look at what they have to say? Note also that Robert Hanson of Overcoming Bias has discussed these issues extensively with Eliezer and has not been at all convinced (they had a written debate a while ago but I can't find the link right now. If someone else can track it down I'd appreciate it). One thing to note is that estimates for nanotech can impact the chance of an AI going FOOM substantially. If cheap easy nanotech exists than an AI may be able to improve its hardware at a very fast rate. If however, such nanotech does not exist then an AI will be limited to self-improvement primarily by improving software, which might be much more limited. See this subthread, where I bring up some of the possible barriers to software improvement and become by the end of it substantially more convinced by cousin_it that the barriers to escalating software improvement may be small.
What about the other Bayesians out there? Are they simply not as literate as Eliezer Yudkowsky in the maths or maybe somehow teach but not use their own methods of reasoning and decision making?
Note that even practiced Bayesians are from from perfect rationalists. If one hasn't thought about an issue or even considered that something is possible there's not much one can do about it. Moreover, a fair number of people who self-identify as Bayesian rationalists aren't very rational, and the set of people who do self-identify as such is pretty small.
Maybe after a few years of study I'll know more. But right now, if I was forced to choose the future over the present, the SIAI or to have some fun. I'd have some fun.
Given your data set this seems reasonable to me. Frankly, if I were to give money or support the SIAI I would do so primarily because I think that the Singularity Summits are clearly helpful and getting together lots of smart people and that this is true even if one assigns a low probability for any Singularity type event occurring in the next 50 years.
...Runaway AI/AI going FOOM - This is potentially the most interesting of your points simply because it is so much more unique to the SIAI and Eliezer. So what can one do to figure out if this is correct? One thing to do is to examine the arguments and claims being made in detail. And see what other experts think on the subject. In this context, most AI people seem to consider this to be an unlikely problem, so maybe look at what they have to say? Note also that Robert Hanson of Overcoming Bias has discussed these issues extensively with Eliezer and has not
Major update here.
The state of affairs regarding the SIAI and its underlying rationale and rules of operation are insufficiently clear.
Most of the arguments involve a few propositions and the use of probability and utility calculations to legitimate action. Here much is uncertain to an extent that I'm not able to judge any nested probability estimations. Even if you tell me, where is the data on which you base those estimations?
There seems to be an highly complicated framework of estimations to support and reinforce each other. I'm not sure how you call this in English, but in German I'd call that a castle in the air.
I know that what I'm saying may simply be due to a lack of knowledge and education, that is why I am inquiring about it. How many of you, who currently support the SIAI, are able to analyse the reasoning that led you to support the SIAI in the first place, or at least substantiate your estimations with other kinds of evidence than a coherent internal logic?
I can follow much of the reasoning and arguments on this site. But I'm currently unable to judge their overall credence. Are the conclusions justified? Is the coherent framework build around the SIAI based on firm ground? There seems to be no critical inspection or examination by a third party. There is no peer review. Yet people are willing to donate considerable amounts of money.
I'm concerned that, although consistently so, the SIAI and its supporters are updating on fictional evidence. This post is meant to inquire about the foundations of your basic premises. Are you creating models to treat subsequent models or are your propositions based on fact?
An example here is the use of the Many-worlds interpretation. Itself a logical implication, can it be used to make further inferences and estimations without additional evidence? MWI might be the only consistent non-magic interpretation of quantum mechanics. The problem here is that such conclusions are, I believe, widely considered not to be enough to base further speculations and estimations on. Isn't that similar to what you are doing when speculating about the possibility of superhuman AI and its consequences? What I'm trying to say here is that if the cornerstone of your argumentation, if one of your basic tenets is the likelihood of superhuman AI, although a valid speculation given what we know about reality, you are already in over your head with debt. Debt in the form of other kinds of evidence. Not to say that it is a false hypothesis, that it is not even wrong, but that you cannot base a whole movement and a huge framework of further inference and supportive argumentation on such premises, on ideas that are themselves not based on firm ground.
The gist of the matter is that a coherent and consistent framework of sound argumentation based on unsupported inference is nothing more than its description implies. It is fiction. Imagination allows for endless possibilities while scientific evidence provides hints of what might be possible and what impossible. Science does provide the ability to assess your data. Any hint that empirical criticism provides gives you new information on which you can build on. Not because it bears truth value but because it gives you an idea of what might be possible. An opportunity to try something. There’s that which seemingly fails or contradicts itself and that which seems to work and is consistent.
And that is my problem. Given my current educational background and knowledge I cannot differentiate LW between a consistent internal logic, i.e. imagination or fiction, and something which is sufficiently based on empirical criticism to provide a firm substantiation of the strong arguments for action that are proclaimed by the SIAI.
Further, do you have an explanation for the circumstance that Eliezer Yudkowsky is the only semi-popular person who's aware of something that might shatter the universe? Why is it that people like Vernor Vinge, Robin Hanson or Ray Kurzweil are not running amok using all their influence to convince people of the risks ahead, or at least give all they have to the SIAI? Why aren't Eric Drexler, Gary Drescher or AI researches like Marvin Minsky worried to the extent that they signal their support?
I'm talking to quite a few educated people outside this community. They do not doubt all those claims for no particular reason. Rather they tell me that there are too many open questions to focus on the possibilities depicted by the SIAI and to neglect other near-term risks that might wipe us out as well.
I believe that many people out there know a lot more than I do, so far, about related topics and yet they seem not to be nearly as concerned about the relevant issues than the average Less Wrong member. I could have named other people. That's besides the point though, it's not just Hanson or Vinge but everyone versus Eliezer Yudkowsky and some unknown followers. What about the other Bayesians out there? Are they simply not as literate as Eliezer Yudkowsky in the maths or maybe somehow teach but not use their own methods of reasoning and decision making?
What do you expect me to do, just believe Eliezer Yudkowsky? Like I believed so much in the past which made sense but turned out to be wrong? Maybe after a few years of study I'll know more.
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2011-01-06: As this post received over 500 comments I am reluctant to delete it. But I feel that it is outdated and that I could do much better today. This post has however been slightly improved to account for some shortcomings but has not been completely rewritten, neither have its conclusions been changed. Please account for this when reading comments that were written before this update.
2012-08-04: A list of some of my critical posts can be found here: SIAI/lesswrong Critiques: Index