Preface

The following article is a layman’s summary of researcher and philosopher Forrest Landry’s work titled No People as Pets: A Dialogue on the Complete Failure of Exogenous AGI/APS Alignment. It is a basic presentation of an argument as to why any form of external AGI alignment in the long term is strictly impossible. Any attempt to implement or use AGI will eventually result in total termination of all carbon based life on this planet. The reader is encouraged to review Forrest’s original No People as Pets work to grasp a fuller understanding of the argument.

This article is not intended as a formal piece requiring specialized knowledge. Instead, it was intentionally written in a way that is meant to be accessible to a general audience and does not require an expert-level understanding of AI alignment. As a result, there may be some vagueness in the arguments presented, which could lead to misunderstandings or misinterpretations. Although we have attempted to minimize these issues, we welcome open-minded discussions that challenge our arguments and lead to productive conversations. We recognize that many may not agree with this perspective, but we hope that readers will evaluate the argument based on its own merit.

Definitions

AGI is any machine that has self-agency^[1] and ability to expand itself. AGI alignment is the idea of ensuring that an AGI will behave in our best interests.

We begin with the principle that AGI will always have a hardware form, because all software relies on hardware. Moreover, the AGI must in all cases be concerned with its own hardware because it enables it to accomplish its goal.^[2]

Machine intelligence will likely be implemented on a silica-based substrate.

There are two primary reasons why machine intelligence will likely be implemented on a silica-based substrate.

Historical path dependence. Silicon-wafer based production facilities already exist on a large scale and are expensive to replace (especially if we intend to coordinate the chip supply and production chain around those replacements).
Abundance of cheaply extractable silicon. See quartzite, which is basically compressed sand.

In terms of speed, silica-based compute is obviously far faster than carbon-based compute. However, compared to other transistor chip substrates like carbon nanotubes, silica-based AGI may not be the fastest option. So while initia...

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments