You say we aren’t good at finding substitute resources. This may be so.
In the absence of civilization bigger brains where a robust trend among hominids for millions of years. Bigger can be better when it comes to smarts.
And the whole idea of transhuman intelligences being so dangerous is that they are so because intelligence is overpowered in our universe. Would you feel safe dumping say an AI that was quite a bit beyond genius level on a resource starved rock (if stripped of all knowledge beyond that of stone age humans)?
And were you aware that your trend broke down 30,000 years ago, and the brain has shrunk?
Since the Late Pleistocene (approximately 30,000 years ago), human brain size decreased by approximately 10%; yet again, this decrease was paralleled by a decrease in body size
And were you aware that your trend broke down 30,000 years ago, and the brain has shrunk?
Yes. (“Dataset: all measurments of moninin cranial capcity available in the literature as of September 2000, for skulls older than 10,000 years old”).
Bigger can be better when it comes to smarts.
It was part of a overall argument that humans have probably been getting smarter for the past few million years. And that this trend had nothing to do with the availability of fossil fuels or iron until perhaps very recently. It seems likely that this would have continued in their absence. And it seems likley that bigger brains would translate into better tools and more complex social organisation as they tended to have in eons past.
You say we aren’t good at finding substitute resources. This may be so.
In the absence of civilization bigger brains where a robust trend among hominids for millions of years. Bigger can be better when it comes to smarts.
And the whole idea of transhuman intelligences being so dangerous is that they are so because intelligence is overpowered in our universe. Would you feel safe dumping say an AI that was quite a bit beyond genius level on a resource starved rock (if stripped of all knowledge beyond that of stone age humans)?
The additional marginal value of human-architectured intelligence is questionable outside of a modern context. See http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics#modafinil
And were you aware that your trend broke down 30,000 years ago, and the brain has shrunk?
“Evolution of the human brain: is bigger better?” (this doesn’t include the bigger-brained Neanderthals either)
Yes. (“Dataset: all measurments of moninin cranial capcity available in the literature as of September 2000, for skulls older than 10,000 years old”).
It was part of a overall argument that humans have probably been getting smarter for the past few million years. And that this trend had nothing to do with the availability of fossil fuels or iron until perhaps very recently. It seems likely that this would have continued in their absence. And it seems likley that bigger brains would translate into better tools and more complex social organisation as they tended to have in eons past.