brandyn
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brandyn has not written any posts yet.
Appologies for the provacative phrasing--I was (inadvertently) asking for a heated reply...
But to clarify the point in light of your response (which no doubt will get another heated reply, though honestly trying to convey the point w/out provoking...):
Piles of radioactive material is not a good analogy here. But I think it's appearance here is a good illustration of the very thing I'm hoping to convey: There are a lot of (vague, wrong) theories of AGI which map well to the radioactive pile analogy. Just put enough of the ingredients together in a pile, and FOOM. But the more you actually work on AGI, the more you realize how... (read 574 more words →)
"but almost no one anywhere has ever heard of AI friendliness"
Ok, if this is your vantage point, I understand better. I must hang in the wrong circles 'cause I meet far more FAI than AGI folks.
Yes, I understand that. But it matters a lot what premises underlie AGI how self-modification is going to impact it. The stronger fast-FOOM arguments spring from older conceptions of AGI. Imo, a better understanding of AGI does not support it.
Thanks much for the interesting conversation, I think I am expired.
See reply below to drethlin.
Sigh.
Ok, I see the problem with this discussion, and I see no solution. If you understood AGI better, you would understand why your reply is like telling me I shouldn't play with electricity because Zeus will get angry and punish the village. But that very concern prevents you from understanding AGI better, so we are at an impasse.
It makes me sad, because with the pervasiveness of this superstition, we've lost enough minds from our side that the military will probably beat us to it.
Just to follow up, I'm seeing nothing new in IEM (or if it's there it's too burried in "hear me think" to find--Eliezer really would benefit from pruning down to essentials). Most of it concerns the point where AGI approaches or exceeds human intelligence. There's very little to support concern for the long ramp up to that point (other than some matter of genetic programming, which I haven't the time to address here). I could go on rather at length in rebuttal of the post-human-intelligence FOOM theory (not discounting it entirely, but putting certain qualitative bounds on it that justify the claim that FAI will be most fruitfully pursued... (read more)
Well, then, I hope it's someone like you or me that's at the button. But that's not going to be the case if we're working on FAI instead of AGI, is it...
Let's imagine you solve FAI tomorrow, but not AGI. (I see it as highly improbable that anyone will meaningfully solve FAI before solving AGI, but let's explore that optimistic scenario.) Meanwhile, various folks and institutions out there are ahead of you in AGI research by however much time you've spent on FAI. At least one of them won't care about FAI.
I have a hard time imagining any outcome from that scenario that doesn't involve you wishing you'd been working on AGI and gotten there first. How do you imagine the outcome?
Which do you think is more likely: That you will die of old age, or of unfriendly-AI? (Serious question, genuinely curious.)
I think it will be incidental to AGI. That is, by the time you are approaching human-level AGI it will be essentially obvious (to the sort of person who groks human-level AGI in the first place). Motivation (as a component of the process of thinking) is integral to AGI, not some extra thing only humans and animals happen to have. Motivation needs be grokked before you will have AGI in the first place. Human motivational structure is quite complex, with far more alterior motives (clan affiliation, reproduction, etc) than straightforward ones. AGIs needn't be so-burdened, which in many ways makes the FAI problem easier in fact than... (read more)