"Given that I think my chances are somewhere below 1/4, I'd expect my $5 to match your $20"

We need a pledge drive to set up a fund for a successful AI. This will give the AI a reasonable return, but not give gatekeepers a strong monetary disincentive that leaves them typing "nope" over and over again.

I have ten bucks for the first AI that defeats a gatekeeper (while risking some dough) and posts a link to the transcript here.

I wonder if a sinecure isn't a similar pitfall for someone who's out to save the world.

Roland. That's a clever twist and I like it. I would not pony up any $, but I'd expect him to be able to raise it and wouldn't set out for California armed to the teeth on a Sarah Connor mission to stop him either. So I'd fail to recognize and execute my role as gatekeeper by your rules.

But I do think there's a flaw in the scenario. For it to truly parallel the AI box, the critter either needs to stay in its cage or get out. I do agree with the main thrust of the original post here and built into your scenario is the assumption that EY has some sort of superpower-- that he and his million bucks are the only way an AI would hit the scene.

My assumption would be that if EY can build an AI, someone else can also. And it would probably be for the best if the first AI was built by someone who strives for friendliness.

But if I did buy the implicit assumption that EY had a unique superpower, I probably owe it to my kids and humanity in general to pack up the 30.06, or at least not send him any cash.

Still, I really like your twist on the experiment.

Roland, I'd certainly be willing to play gatekeeper, but if you have such a concise argument, why not just proffer it here for all to see?

Yet it's referred to as "humanly impossible" in the link (granted this may be cheeky).

Who is the target audience for this AI box experiment info? Who is detached enough from biases to weigh the avowals as solid evidence without further description, yet not detached enough to see they themselves might have fallen for it? Seems like most people capable of the first could also see the second.

Interesting choice to use the A.I. box experiment as an example for this post, when the methods used by EY in it were not revealed. Whatever the rationale for keeping it close to the vest, not showing how it was done struck me as an attempt to build mystique, if not appear magical.

This post also seems a little inconsistent with EY’s assistant researcher job listing, which said something to the effect that only those with 1 in 100k g need apply, though those with 1 in 1000 could contribute to the cause monetarily. The error may be mine in this instance, because I may be in the minority when I assume someone who claims to have Einstein’s intelligence is not claiming anything like 1 in 100k g.

Cialdini also seems to have put out the same info in a textbook (which does not read like one) "Influence, Science and Practice." Amazon reviews say it is nearly identical, except it has chapter reviews and problems. I only mention this because this is the version that was available at my 2 nearest library systems. Very good reading a quarter of the way in-- so thanks for the tip.

EY-- what other books are in the "own 3 copy" club?

I can point you to an example where a book found a real publisher, because it did fairly well on Lulu and was written by someone with an internet following:

http://www.amazon.com/Seagalogy-Study-Ass-Kicking-Steven-Seagal/dp/1845769279/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205436229&sr=8-1

All he had to do was pull the Lulu edition. I would think the overlap between your 500 page technical work and a popular book wouldn't be much greater than that between Freakonomics and Levitt's journal articles, and I don't think he lost too many sales because people were running to their libraries to access NBER.

follow up on the poker player's results (he put up 10K because he was convinced Intrade was easy to beat):

Can't sleep, so, postmortem:

I did two things very right, and one thing wrong. Almost all of my predictions prior to 2/5 were dead on, and they largely continued to be once the count actually began, except for one thing: because they fit my preconceptions and what I hoped the last minute vote was doing, I trusted Drudge's leaked polls. As such, I immediately jumped into the Dem market with both feet when I was previously committed to staying away from it until I saw EST results. The upside was that, when the aforementioned results came in and proved those polls horribly flawed, in most cases I got to take the money and run everywhere else before the market knew what hit it. I immediately got out of the national Dem market only down $500 or so and actually made a big profit off the states.

In short, I give myself a B+ for the night.

Oh yeah, results...up 2800 on the night, 35% total, and nearly 100% since NH with a lot of money still sitting in those guaranteed $$$ Pres.McCain shares.