Regardless of whether you think a singleton is a good idea or a bad idea—does this mean that Americans would overwhelmingly vote to construct a singleton, if they were given the choice?
Next can we have post that excludes black people, women or chemists?
And would the ideas about how to design that singleton break down along party lines?
It would break down along the lines of the rest of the world* nuking the @%$# out of you. And I mean this to be read seriously and non-ironic way. A singleton project instigated by an American public(ish) political process would not be tolerated by the other countries with the power to stop it. Even with that counterfactualized away I would be betting that (at least) one of the American military services would make a play at control before the system went critical.
With great power comes great chance that people will be desperate to stop you while they can.
Except us down here in Australia. We’d be saying ‘Please! You can be our Mommy AND our our Daddy! Just let us hang out with you.’
Next can we have post that excludes black people, women or chemists?
I’m an American. I’m writing about extrapolations of the American psyche from American politics. Would you rather have me assume that this generalizes to the entire world?
If you feel left-out, write your own post on your country.
I’m an American. I’m writing about extrapolations of the American psyche from American politics. Would you rather have me assume that this generalizes to the entire world?
No, I don’t particularly mind. But do note that to assume that the rest of the world would allow the American public to build a singleton is a rather massive counterfactual. I also imagine that being in a world where the rest of the world was not a threat would make a rather significant impact on the American Psych.
If you feel left-out, write your own post on your country.
My reference to Australia (unfortunately) already says a lot about my country’s psych as it relates to this kind of topic.
I think that any powerful human group would try to stop any other group from building a singleton of any kind. (Ditto for a first-ever FAI if people appreciate its power correctly.) To allow a singleton to be built by someone else is a total, extreme, irrevocable surrender of independence.
Which is why anyone trying to build a singleton would do so (or is doing so) in secret.
Having a generally-human-Friendly singleton built by someone else is better than existential risk (I believe), even if worse than a personal singleton.
Yes. But when it’s being built by someone else in a not very transparent setting, what probability do you assign to its being generally-human-Friendly instead of particular-human-Friendly towards its creators? And how do you make sure its creators don’t commit fatal mistakes?
Suppose a group (foreign government, startup, etc) is building a singleton. They say it’s for the benefit of all mankind and other generally nice things. They won’t let you inspect it up close and don’t reveal their theories & tech, for fear of competition. Even if you offer to help, they say the value of your help is too small to risk your subverting their goals. You have the choice of:
Stopping them by force—use your biggest bombs, no questions asked.
Conquering them, trying to recover their technology, and using it to try to build your own singleton.
As above, but releasing all information and trying to make your singleton-building process 100% transparent and open to anyone who wants to participate.
Ignoring them.
Defending them against any attackers.
Edit: 6. Ignoring them but starting your own singleton project and trying to finish first. Variations: (6a) secret project, (6b) public but not transparent project, just like theirs, and (6c) transparent project inviting others to assist.
Anyone choosing 6 would have to present a very good reason for not choosing 2 or 3 instead, since competition is an obvious problem, winner takes all.
What do you do? I argue that most people/governments/armies will choose 1 or 2.
We are diverting a bit from ‘any’, ‘any other’ and ‘any kind’ here.
Well, I think any group would tend to consider any other group ‘not transparent and reliable enough’, given the extremely high stakes involved. A development effort that most people felt was open enough would be so open that there would effectively be no separate groups.
So, in any situation where the description of “one powerful group building a singleton and another group watching them” applies, I stand by my prediction.
How about if the figurehead made the effort to signal that he is too silly for a sophisticated body to consider a threat? After all, I’d sooner put plastic bottles of water on my roof than admit that some anime obsessed nerd was a bigger threat than me.
Next can we have post that excludes black people, women or chemists?
It would break down along the lines of the rest of the world* nuking the @%$# out of you. And I mean this to be read seriously and non-ironic way. A singleton project instigated by an American public(ish) political process would not be tolerated by the other countries with the power to stop it. Even with that counterfactualized away I would be betting that (at least) one of the American military services would make a play at control before the system went critical.
With great power comes great chance that people will be desperate to stop you while they can.
Except us down here in Australia. We’d be saying ‘Please! You can be our Mommy AND our our Daddy! Just let us hang out with you.’
I’m an American. I’m writing about extrapolations of the American psyche from American politics. Would you rather have me assume that this generalizes to the entire world?
If you feel left-out, write your own post on your country.
No, I don’t particularly mind. But do note that to assume that the rest of the world would allow the American public to build a singleton is a rather massive counterfactual. I also imagine that being in a world where the rest of the world was not a threat would make a rather significant impact on the American Psych.
My reference to Australia (unfortunately) already says a lot about my country’s psych as it relates to this kind of topic.
I think that any powerful human group would try to stop any other group from building a singleton of any kind. (Ditto for a first-ever FAI if people appreciate its power correctly.) To allow a singleton to be built by someone else is a total, extreme, irrevocable surrender of independence.
Which is why anyone trying to build a singleton would do so (or is doing so) in secret.
Having a generally-human-Friendly singleton built by someone else is better than existential risk (I believe), even if worse than a personal singleton.
Yes. But when it’s being built by someone else in a not very transparent setting, what probability do you assign to its being generally-human-Friendly instead of particular-human-Friendly towards its creators? And how do you make sure its creators don’t commit fatal mistakes?
Suppose a group (foreign government, startup, etc) is building a singleton. They say it’s for the benefit of all mankind and other generally nice things. They won’t let you inspect it up close and don’t reveal their theories & tech, for fear of competition. Even if you offer to help, they say the value of your help is too small to risk your subverting their goals. You have the choice of:
Stopping them by force—use your biggest bombs, no questions asked.
Conquering them, trying to recover their technology, and using it to try to build your own singleton.
As above, but releasing all information and trying to make your singleton-building process 100% transparent and open to anyone who wants to participate.
Ignoring them.
Defending them against any attackers.
Edit: 6. Ignoring them but starting your own singleton project and trying to finish first. Variations: (6a) secret project, (6b) public but not transparent project, just like theirs, and (6c) transparent project inviting others to assist.
Anyone choosing 6 would have to present a very good reason for not choosing 2 or 3 instead, since competition is an obvious problem, winner takes all.
What do you do? I argue that most people/governments/armies will choose 1 or 2.
… We are diverting a bit from ‘any’, ‘any other’ and ‘any kind’ here.
And yes, the only credible alternative to 1 and 2 would be 4 in those cases where the agent predicts their own singleton to foom first.
Well, I think any group would tend to consider any other group ‘not transparent and reliable enough’, given the extremely high stakes involved. A development effort that most people felt was open enough would be so open that there would effectively be no separate groups.
So, in any situation where the description of “one powerful group building a singleton and another group watching them” applies, I stand by my prediction.
How about if the figurehead made the effort to signal that he is too silly for a sophisticated body to consider a threat? After all, I’d sooner put plastic bottles of water on my roof than admit that some anime obsessed nerd was a bigger threat than me.
(Yes.) There are some people that I would not try to kill if they were getting close to creating singleton.