I don’t think it’s plausible that people could stumble on the problem statement 300 years ago, but within that hypothetical, it wouldn’t have been too early.
It seems to me that 100 years ago (or more) you would have to consider pretty much any philosophy and mathematics to be relevant to AI risk reduction, as well as reduction of other potential risks, and the attempts to select the work particularly conductive to the AI risk reduction would not be able to succeed. Effort planning is the key to success.
On somewhat unrelated: Reading the publications and this thread, there is point of definitions that I do not understand: what exactly does S.I. mean when it speaks of “utility function” in the context of an AI? Is it a computable mathematical function over a model, such that the ‘intelligence’ component computes the action that results in maximum of that function taken over the world state resulting from the action?
Also, and not just wanting to flash academic applause lights but also genuinely curious, which mathematical successes have been due to effort planning? Even in my own mundane commercial programming experiences, the company which won the biggest was more “This is what we’d like, go away and do it and get back to us when it’s done...” than “We have this Gantt chart...”.
I don’t think it’s plausible that people could stumble on the problem statement 300 years ago, but within that hypothetical, it wouldn’t have been too early.
It seems to me that 100 years ago (or more) you would have to consider pretty much any philosophy and mathematics to be relevant to AI risk reduction, as well as reduction of other potential risks, and the attempts to select the work particularly conductive to the AI risk reduction would not be able to succeed. Effort planning is the key to success.
On somewhat unrelated: Reading the publications and this thread, there is point of definitions that I do not understand: what exactly does S.I. mean when it speaks of “utility function” in the context of an AI? Is it a computable mathematical function over a model, such that the ‘intelligence’ component computes the action that results in maximum of that function taken over the world state resulting from the action?
Surely “Effort planning is a key to success”?
Also, and not just wanting to flash academic applause lights but also genuinely curious, which mathematical successes have been due to effort planning? Even in my own mundane commercial programming experiences, the company which won the biggest was more “This is what we’d like, go away and do it and get back to us when it’s done...” than “We have this Gantt chart...”.