As far as I remember, across last 3500 years of history, only 8% was entirely without war. Current relatively peaceful times is a unique combination in international law and postindustrial economy, when qualified labor is expencive and requires large investments in capital and resources are relatively cheap, which is not the case after singularity, when you can get arbitrary amounts of labor for the price of hardware and resources is a bottleneck.
So, “people usually choose to trade, rather than go to war with each other when they want stuff” is not very warranted statement.
I was making a claim about the usual method people use to get things that they want from other people, rather than proposing an inviolable rule. Even historically, war was not the usual method people used to get what they wanted from other people. The fact that only 8% of history was “entirely without war” is compatible with the claim that the usual method people used to get what they wanted involved compromise and trade, rather than war. In particular, just because only 8% of history was “entirely without war” does not mean that only 8% of human interactions between people were without war.
Current relatively peaceful times is a unique combination in international law and postindustrial economy, when qualified labor is expencive and requires large investments in capital and resources are relatively cheap, which is not the case after singularity, when you can get arbitrary amounts of labor for the price of hardware and resources is a bottleneck.
You mentioned two major differences between the current time period and what you expect after the technological singularity:
The current time period has unique international law
The current time period has expensive labor, relative to capital
I question both the premise that good international law will cease to exist after the singularity, and the relevance of both of these claims to the central claim that AIs will automatically use war to get what they want unless they are aligned to humans.
There are many other reasons one can point to, to explain the fact that the modern world is relatively peaceful. For example, I think a big factor in explaining the current peace is that long-distance trade and communication has become easier, making the world more interconnected than ever before. I also think it’s highly likely that long-distance trade and communication will continue to be relatively easy in the future, even post-singularity.
Regarding the point about cheap labor, one could also point out that if capital is relatively expensive, this fact would provide a strong reason to avoid war, as a counter-attack targeting factories would become extremely costly. It is unclear to me why you think it is important that labor is expensive, for explaining why the world is currently fairly peaceful.
Therefore, before you have developed a more explicit and precise theory of why exactly the current world is peaceful, and how these variables are expected to evolve after the singularity, I simply don’t find this counterargument compelling.
As far as I remember, across last 3500 years of history, only 8% was entirely without war. Current relatively peaceful times is a unique combination in international law and postindustrial economy, when qualified labor is expencive and requires large investments in capital and resources are relatively cheap, which is not the case after singularity, when you can get arbitrary amounts of labor for the price of hardware and resources is a bottleneck.
So, “people usually choose to trade, rather than go to war with each other when they want stuff” is not very warranted statement.
I was making a claim about the usual method people use to get things that they want from other people, rather than proposing an inviolable rule. Even historically, war was not the usual method people used to get what they wanted from other people. The fact that only 8% of history was “entirely without war” is compatible with the claim that the usual method people used to get what they wanted involved compromise and trade, rather than war. In particular, just because only 8% of history was “entirely without war” does not mean that only 8% of human interactions between people were without war.
You mentioned two major differences between the current time period and what you expect after the technological singularity:
The current time period has unique international law
The current time period has expensive labor, relative to capital
I question both the premise that good international law will cease to exist after the singularity, and the relevance of both of these claims to the central claim that AIs will automatically use war to get what they want unless they are aligned to humans.
There are many other reasons one can point to, to explain the fact that the modern world is relatively peaceful. For example, I think a big factor in explaining the current peace is that long-distance trade and communication has become easier, making the world more interconnected than ever before. I also think it’s highly likely that long-distance trade and communication will continue to be relatively easy in the future, even post-singularity.
Regarding the point about cheap labor, one could also point out that if capital is relatively expensive, this fact would provide a strong reason to avoid war, as a counter-attack targeting factories would become extremely costly. It is unclear to me why you think it is important that labor is expensive, for explaining why the world is currently fairly peaceful.
Therefore, before you have developed a more explicit and precise theory of why exactly the current world is peaceful, and how these variables are expected to evolve after the singularity, I simply don’t find this counterargument compelling.