As long as we’re allowing some discussion on off-topic subjects that are not “the art of human rationality”, can we please get rid of the useful off-topic subjects last?
If that community couldn’t sustain itself, is there reason to think a subreddit here would prosper any better?
The problem with discussion of AGI, nanotechnology, and all the other “Shock Level N” memes for N ≥ 2 is that there is no real subject matter. For the most part it’s just verbal geekery about cool ideas that no-one is actually doing anything about, because they’re too far beyond current capabilities. Fine to engage in for a while at an SF con or in a pub with other geeks, but there’s only so long you can be at a party before realising you’re just seeing the same ideas over and over and it’s time to leave.
I never read SL4 -- is that an accurate description of why it died?
As for its relation to SL4, I’d say that it sounds roughly right—I wouldn’t go as far as to say that there was “no real subject matter”, but it’s true that the list eventually ran out of worthwhile things to say that hadn’t been already discussed.
Aha—a relevant discussion was had on the list about a year ago, hereabouts.
We really ought to have a subreddit if people really want to talk about sl4/fai topics here. A different site on the same engine would be even better.
In this context I put Friendly AI in the category of “general AI stuff”.
The important part here is that it’s about FAI, not about the art of human rationality.
As long as we’re allowing some discussion on off-topic subjects that are not “the art of human rationality”, can we please get rid of the useful off-topic subjects last?
I’d rather diminish the discussion of off-topic subjects, and get rid of the noisiest topics first.
AI and FAI are notable because people like to talk about them a lot for something off-topic.
I’d be more likely to agree if there were somewhere else to productively discuss Singularity/FAI issues.
I agree that there should be somewhere else to discuss those things.
SL4?
Does that still exist?
The site’s there, but I don’t know how active the community still is.
Dead.
If that community couldn’t sustain itself, is there reason to think a subreddit here would prosper any better?
The problem with discussion of AGI, nanotechnology, and all the other “Shock Level N” memes for N ≥ 2 is that there is no real subject matter. For the most part it’s just verbal geekery about cool ideas that no-one is actually doing anything about, because they’re too far beyond current capabilities. Fine to engage in for a while at an SF con or in a pub with other geeks, but there’s only so long you can be at a party before realising you’re just seeing the same ideas over and over and it’s time to leave.
I never read SL4 -- is that an accurate description of why it died?
I’ve entertained a similar hypothesis myself.
As for its relation to SL4, I’d say that it sounds roughly right—I wouldn’t go as far as to say that there was “no real subject matter”, but it’s true that the list eventually ran out of worthwhile things to say that hadn’t been already discussed.
Aha—a relevant discussion was had on the list about a year ago, hereabouts.
We really ought to have a subreddit if people really want to talk about sl4/fai topics here. A different site on the same engine would be even better.
I’m 100% for this. If there were such a site I would probably permanently relocate there.