The process that is responsible for Moore’s law involves human engineers, but it also involves human culture, machines and software.
So are you arguing for some superexponential growth from cultural evolution changing this process, or what? It’s completely unclear why this matters.
The position I’m arguing against is:
if our old extrapolation was for Moore’s Law to follow such-and-such curve given human engineers, then faster engineers should break upward from that extrapolation.
This treats human engineers as a fixed quantity. However the process that actually produces Moore’s law involves
human engineers, human culture, machines and software. Only the former are relatively unchanging. Culture, machines and software are all improving dramatically as time passes—and they are absolutely the reason why Moore’s law can keep up the pace. Yudkowsky has a long history of not properly understanding this process—and it hinders his analysis.
The human engineer’s DNA may have stayed unchanged over the last century, but their cultural software has improved dramatically over that same period—resulting in the Flynn effect.
That may be your explanation for the Flynn effect, but I think it’s safer to remain on the fence. There are too many other possible causal mechanisms at play to blame it on cultural evolution.
Only by considering how this phenomenon is rooted in the present day, can it be properly understood.
Show me a modification to one of the basic models that follows from this statement and changes the consequence of the argument.
That seems like a vague and expensive-sounding order. How would seeing “a modification to one of the basic models that follows from this statement and changes the consequence of the argument” add to the discussion?
This treats human engineers as a fixed quantity. However the process that actually produces Moore’s law involves human engineers, human culture, machines and software. Only the former are relatively unchanging. Culture, machines and software are all improving dramatically as time passes—and they are absolutely the reason why Moore’s law can keep up the pace.
So then Moore’s law should be faster than Yudkowsky’s analysis predicts, because of cultural evolution? I still have no idea what you’re trying to argue.
Yudkowsky has a long history of not properly understanding this process—and it hinders his analysis.
How does it hinder his analysis? Please give me something concrete to work with. For example, when a mathematician says “Only by looking at the cohomology groups of a space can we properly understand the topology of its holes,” it means that under any weaker theory (e.g., looking only at the Euler characteristic—see Lakatos’ Proofs and Refutations) one quickly runs into problems (e.g., a torus has the same Euler characteristic as a Mobius strip, but the cohomology is much different).
All of the proposed explanations of the Flynn effect can be expressed in cultural evolution
Granted. I still don’t think you could cause the Flynn effect by inducing cultural evolution (whatever that means). The reactionaries would have a field day regaling you with tales of Ethiopia and decolonization.
Only by considering how this phenomenon is rooted in the present day, can it be properly understood.
Show me a modification to one of the basic models that follows from this statement and changes the consequence of the argument.
That seems like an expensive-sounding order.
Should be as simple as modifying a few terms and solving a differential equation, or perhaps a system of them. Doing such things is why humans invented computers. More importantly, it would be an actionable contribution to the study.
How would seeing “a modification to one of the basic models that follows from this statement and changes the consequence of the argument” add to the discussion?
It’d be the rent for believing cultural evolution is significantly relevant to the model.
So then Moore’s law should be faster than Yudkowsky’s analysis predicts, because of cultural evolution? I still have no idea what you’re trying to argue.
It seems to me that timtyler’s point is that Yudkowsky is wrong to claim that the current Moore’s law was extrapolated from fix-speed engineers. Engineers were ALREADY using computers to enhance their productivity, and timtyler suggests that cultural factors also increase the engineers speed. The cycle of build faster computer → increase engineering productivity → build even faster computer → increase engineering productivity even more, etc was already cooked in to the extrapolation, so there is no reason to assume we’ll break above it.
All of the proposed explanations of the Flynn effect can be expressed in cultural evolution
Granted. I still don’t think you could cause the Flynn effect by inducing cultural evolution (whatever that means). The reactionaries would have a field day regaling you with tales of Ethiopia and decolonization.
Modern cultural evolution is, on average, progressive. Fundamentally, that’s because evolution is a giant optimization process operating in a relatively benign environment. The Flynn effect is one part of that.
It’d be the rent for believing cultural evolution is significantly relevant to the model.
Machine intelligence will be a product of human culture. The process of building machine intelligence is cultural evolution in action. In the future, we will make a society of machines that will share cultural information to recapitulate the evolution of human society. That’s what memetic algorithms are all about.
The position I’m arguing against is:
This treats human engineers as a fixed quantity. However the process that actually produces Moore’s law involves human engineers, human culture, machines and software. Only the former are relatively unchanging. Culture, machines and software are all improving dramatically as time passes—and they are absolutely the reason why Moore’s law can keep up the pace. Yudkowsky has a long history of not properly understanding this process—and it hinders his analysis.
All of the proposed explanations of the Flynn effect can be expressed in terms of cultural evolution—except perhaps for for Heterosis, which is rather obviously incapable of explaining the observed effect.
That seems like a vague and expensive-sounding order. How would seeing “a modification to one of the basic models that follows from this statement and changes the consequence of the argument” add to the discussion?
So then Moore’s law should be faster than Yudkowsky’s analysis predicts, because of cultural evolution? I still have no idea what you’re trying to argue.
How does it hinder his analysis? Please give me something concrete to work with. For example, when a mathematician says “Only by looking at the cohomology groups of a space can we properly understand the topology of its holes,” it means that under any weaker theory (e.g., looking only at the Euler characteristic—see Lakatos’ Proofs and Refutations) one quickly runs into problems (e.g., a torus has the same Euler characteristic as a Mobius strip, but the cohomology is much different).
Granted. I still don’t think you could cause the Flynn effect by inducing cultural evolution (whatever that means). The reactionaries would have a field day regaling you with tales of Ethiopia and decolonization.
Should be as simple as modifying a few terms and solving a differential equation, or perhaps a system of them. Doing such things is why humans invented computers. More importantly, it would be an actionable contribution to the study.
It’d be the rent for believing cultural evolution is significantly relevant to the model.
It seems to me that timtyler’s point is that Yudkowsky is wrong to claim that the current Moore’s law was extrapolated from fix-speed engineers. Engineers were ALREADY using computers to enhance their productivity, and timtyler suggests that cultural factors also increase the engineers speed. The cycle of build faster computer → increase engineering productivity → build even faster computer → increase engineering productivity even more, etc was already cooked in to the extrapolation, so there is no reason to assume we’ll break above it.
That’s a correct summary. See also my: Self-Improving Systems Are Here Already.
Using computers and culture to enhance productivity is often known as intelligence augmentation. It’s an important phenomenon.
Modern cultural evolution is, on average, progressive. Fundamentally, that’s because evolution is a giant optimization process operating in a relatively benign environment. The Flynn effect is one part of that.
Machine intelligence will be a product of human culture. The process of building machine intelligence is cultural evolution in action. In the future, we will make a society of machines that will share cultural information to recapitulate the evolution of human society. That’s what memetic algorithms are all about.
There is an ocean between us. I keep asking for specifics, and you keep giving generalities.
I give up. There was an interesting idea somewhere in here, but it was lost in too many magical categories.
Hmm. Maybe you think I am not being specific—because you are not familiar with my material on this topic?
To recap, the basics of my preferred model of this process are here.