Lalartu

So people who say “brain preservation [or cryonics] doesn’t work” are either confused or >>making a very strong claim about neuroscience (that molecular structure doesn’t encode >>identity/memories) and/or future technology (that we can know with certainty what future >>technology won’t be able to do)

That is not entirely true. Some people who say "cryonics doesn't work" mean "identity is irretrievably lost when the brain activity stops, and in the best case you will have a different person with the same memory and personality traits". Since that argument doesn't give any testable predictions, it cannot be disproved.

Amodei’s general argument is this:

"my basic prediction is that AI-enabled biology and medicine will allow us to compress the progress that human biologists would have achieved over the next 50-100 years into 5-10 years."

This may be correct, but his estimate of what is expected to be achieved in 100 years without AI is likely wildly overoptimistic. In particular, his argument for doubling of lifespan is just an extrapolation from past increase in life expectancy, which is ridiculous because progress in extending maximum human lifespan so far is exactly zero.

Cell line being immortal doesn't prove that immortal brain is possible any more than microbe strain being immortal.

This chain of logic is founded on an assumption that these technologies are possible, which I find highly dubious. If an (aligned) superintelligence is built, and we ask it for life extension, the most probable answer would be that biological immortality (and all stuff requiring nanorobots) is just plain impossible, and brain uploading wouldn't help because your copy is not you.

Well, the more precise phrase would be "fertility decline was not caused by the invention of new birth control technologies". It is totally possible for a society to have below replacement fertility using only birth control methods available since pre-industrial era.

If birth control hasn’t been enabling fertility rates to decline, then what has? Rising women status contributed more than everything else combined.

However, the increasing availability of the birth control pill, other contraception methods, and the legalization of abortion during the 60s and 70s (in the US) are notable >for contributing to the declining fertility rates in the US. That was a continuation of trend which started more than a century before that, after temporary baby boom reversal ended.

No, the opposite doesn’t usually happen. For all of h... (read more)

There are several dubious assumptions there.

The first is that fertility decline is caused mostly by birth control. The problem is, it began long before birth control became widespread. A century ago, most developed nations had TFR somewhere between 2 and 2.5.

The second is that high fertility memes are durable. But usually exactly the opposite happens, "cultural change causes lower fertility" is the same as "high fertility memes lose". That happens with religious groups the same way - Mormons used to have much higher fertility, and now they don't.

As for ada... (read more)

 Anti tank FPV drones? Almost certainly not long term as they’re more expensive than ATGMs,

That is not true at all, anti-tank fpv cost is about 1/100 of a Javelin missile. It is not obvious how much autonomous guidance would add to a drone cost, but probably less than 10000%.

The point about chaff is that a regular size sniper rifle bullet can't contain it in any significant quantity. Smalest existing chaff shells are for 23mm cannons, and a drone carrying ~20mm cannon has to be rather large.

In general, lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian war are not very relevant for a "state of the art" conflict, because both sides have weak air forces. It is like watching two armies fighting with bayonets because they are out of ammo and concluding that you should arm your soldiers with swords and shields.

Also, this makes many assumptions which are dubious (like, sniper drones aren't anywhere close to practical use, and it is not clear if they are viable), but also some which are strictly false:

1. Bullets can't carry enough chaff to "surround" a tank
2. Lasers can destroy artillery shells (which are made of steel) in flight, there is no practical way to harden a light drone against them.

I disagree that "forever is really long time" in this context. To delay AI forever requires delaying it until industrial civilization collapse (from resource depletion or whatever other reason). That means 200-300 years, more likely that 50000.

I think this is not true at all. Modern video games, films or cookies aren't any more addictive compared to those 20 years ago. As for reasons of fertility drop - remember that this is not the first time! USA fertility was barely above replacement in 1930s, and some European countries were below at that time.

Again, that some estimates are given in papers doesn't mean they are even roughly correct. But if they are - then no, that scenario is not suicide. There are some nations now which have lower GDP per capita than USA had two centuries ago.

As for defense - well, that definitely wouldn't be a problem. Who and why will be willing to invade a big and very poor country, leaders of which claim they still have some nukes in reserve?

The first claim is true - but ruling a third world nation is still better than being dead and ruling nothing. If the leadership has Eliezer-level conviction that AI would kill everybody, then the choice is clear. The second isn't - destroying the ability to build AI is much easier, so the reason for abiding the treaty is not "we all die" but rather "we become much poorer and don't get the AI anyway".

I think all these claims are incorrect. First, estimates of damage from nukes are very likely to be hugely (and intentionally) overblown, the same way as pre-WWII estimates for strategic bombing were off by an order of magnitude. Second, even ignoring that, current arsenals (only warheads deployed on ICBMs, other are irrelevant in this scenario) are not sufficient for counter-population strike. Destroying large cities does not destroy the nation. Third and most importantly, leadership ordering the first strike will surely survive! They just move to some remote location before, and then claim that the other side attacked first.

The biggest problem with proposing tanks is convincing military leadership that they need them. They didn't expect trench warfare at all (and yes, some writers predicted it, and nobody believed them).

The winning strategy exists: don't build a large fleet and don't invade Belgium. The problem is, there is basically no way to convince German leadership to follow the first part, and the second part alone doesn't reliably keep Britain neutral.