This is an expression from Eliezer’s Intelligence Explosion Microeconomics. In this context, we imagine an AI making some improvement to its own operation, and then k is the number of new improvements which it is able to find and implement. If k>1, then each improvement allows the AI to make more new improvements, and we imagine the quality of the system growing exponentially.
It’s intended as a simplified model, but I think it simplifies too far to be meaningful in practice. Even very weak systems can be built with “k > 1,” the interesting question will always be about timescales—how long does it take a system to make what kind of improvement?
Can someone clarify what “k>1” refers to in this context? Like, what does k denote?
This is an expression from Eliezer’s Intelligence Explosion Microeconomics. In this context, we imagine an AI making some improvement to its own operation, and then k is the number of new improvements which it is able to find and implement. If k>1, then each improvement allows the AI to make more new improvements, and we imagine the quality of the system growing exponentially.
It’s intended as a simplified model, but I think it simplifies too far to be meaningful in practice. Even very weak systems can be built with “k > 1,” the interesting question will always be about timescales—how long does it take a system to make what kind of improvement?