Much of this discussion focuses on the implications of this model for safety strategy and resource allocation. In this question I want to focus on the empirical part of the model.
What are the boldest predictions the CAIS model makes about what the world will look in <=10 years?
“Boldest” might be interpreted as those predictions which CAIS gives a decent chance, but which have the lowest probability under other “worldviews” such as the Bostrom/Yudkowsky paradigm.
A prediction which all these worldviews agree on, but which is nonetheless quite bold, is less interesting for present purposes (possibly something like that we will see faster progress than places like mainstream academia expect).
Some other related questions:
If you disagree with Drexler, but expect there to be empirical evidence within the next 1-10 years that would change your mind, what is it?
If you expect there to be events in that timeframe causing you to go “I told you so, the world sure doesn’t look like CAIS”, what are they?
Clarifications and suggestions
I should clarify that answers can be about things that would change your mind about whether CAIS is safer than other approaches (see e.g. the Wei_Dai comment linked below).
But I suggest avoiding discussion of cruxes which are more theoretical than empirical (e.g. how decomposable high-level tasks are) unless you have a neat operationalisation for making them empirical (e.g. whether there will be evidence of large economies-of-scope of the most profitable automation services).
Also, it might be really hard to get this down to a single prediction, so it might be useful to pose a cluster of predictions and different operationalisations, and/or using conditional predictions.
[Question] What are CAIS’ boldest near/medium-term predictions?
Background and questions
Since Eric Drexler publicly released his “Comprehensive AI services model” (CAIS) there has been a series of analyses on LW, from rohinmshah, ricraz, PeterMcCluskey, and others.
Much of this discussion focuses on the implications of this model for safety strategy and resource allocation. In this question I want to focus on the empirical part of the model.
What are the boldest predictions the CAIS model makes about what the world will look in <=10 years?
“Boldest” might be interpreted as those predictions which CAIS gives a decent chance, but which have the lowest probability under other “worldviews” such as the Bostrom/Yudkowsky paradigm.
A prediction which all these worldviews agree on, but which is nonetheless quite bold, is less interesting for present purposes (possibly something like that we will see faster progress than places like mainstream academia expect).
Some other related questions:
If you disagree with Drexler, but expect there to be empirical evidence within the next 1-10 years that would change your mind, what is it?
If you expect there to be events in that timeframe causing you to go “I told you so, the world sure doesn’t look like CAIS”, what are they?
Clarifications and suggestions
I should clarify that answers can be about things that would change your mind about whether CAIS is safer than other approaches (see e.g. the Wei_Dai comment linked below).
But I suggest avoiding discussion of cruxes which are more theoretical than empirical (e.g. how decomposable high-level tasks are) unless you have a neat operationalisation for making them empirical (e.g. whether there will be evidence of large economies-of-scope of the most profitable automation services).
Also, it might be really hard to get this down to a single prediction, so it might be useful to pose a cluster of predictions and different operationalisations, and/or using conditional predictions.