Eliezer.… This post terrifies me. How on earth can humans overcome this problem? Everyone is tainted. Every group is tainted. It seems almost fundementally insurrmountable… What are your reasons for working on fAI yourself and not trying to prevent all others working on gAI from succeeding? Why could you succeed? Life extesnion technologies are progressing fairly well without help from anything as dangerous as an AI.
Regarding anthropomorphism of non-human creatures, I was thoroughly fascinated this morning by a fuzzy yellow catepillar in central park that was progressing rapidly (2 cm/s) across a field, over, under, and around obstacles, in a seemingly straight line. After watching its pseudo-sinusoidal body undulations and the circular twisting of its moist, pink head with two tiny black and white mouth parts for 20 minutes, I moved it to another location, after which it changed its direction to crawl in another staight line. After forward projecting where the two lines would intersect, I determined the catepillar was heading directly towards a large tree with multi-rounded-point leaves about 15 feet in the distance. I moved the catepillar on a leaf (not easy, the thing moved very quickly, and I had to keep rotating the leaf) to behind the tree, and sure enough, it turned around, crawled up the tree, into a crevice, and burrowed in with the full drilling force of its furry, little body.
Now, from a human point of view, words like ‘determined,’ ‘deliberate,’ ‘goal-seeking,’ might creep in, especially when it would rear its bulbous head in a circle and change directions, yet I doubt the catepillar had any of these menal constructs. It was, like the moth it must turn into, probably sensing some chemoattractant from the tree… maybe it’s time for it to make a crysalis inside the tree and become a moth or butterfly, and some program just kicks in when it’s gotten strong and fat enough, as this thing clearly was. But ‘OF COURSE’ I thought. C. elegans, a much simpler creature, will change its direction and navigate simple obstacles when an edible proteinous chemoattractant is put in its proximity. The cattepillar is just more advanced at what it does. We know the location and connections of every one of C. elegans 213 neurons… Why can’t we make a device that will do the same thing yet? Too much anthropomorphism?
Eliezer.… This post terrifies me. How on earth can humans overcome this problem? Everyone is tainted. Every group is tainted. It seems almost fundementally insurrmountable… What are your reasons for working on fAI yourself and not trying to prevent all others working on gAI from succeeding? Why could you succeed? Life extesnion technologies are progressing fairly well without help from anything as dangerous as an AI.
Regarding anthropomorphism of non-human creatures, I was thoroughly fascinated this morning by a fuzzy yellow catepillar in central park that was progressing rapidly (2 cm/s) across a field, over, under, and around obstacles, in a seemingly straight line. After watching its pseudo-sinusoidal body undulations and the circular twisting of its moist, pink head with two tiny black and white mouth parts for 20 minutes, I moved it to another location, after which it changed its direction to crawl in another staight line. After forward projecting where the two lines would intersect, I determined the catepillar was heading directly towards a large tree with multi-rounded-point leaves about 15 feet in the distance. I moved the catepillar on a leaf (not easy, the thing moved very quickly, and I had to keep rotating the leaf) to behind the tree, and sure enough, it turned around, crawled up the tree, into a crevice, and burrowed in with the full drilling force of its furry, little body.
Now, from a human point of view, words like ‘determined,’ ‘deliberate,’ ‘goal-seeking,’ might creep in, especially when it would rear its bulbous head in a circle and change directions, yet I doubt the catepillar had any of these menal constructs. It was, like the moth it must turn into, probably sensing some chemoattractant from the tree… maybe it’s time for it to make a crysalis inside the tree and become a moth or butterfly, and some program just kicks in when it’s gotten strong and fat enough, as this thing clearly was. But ‘OF COURSE’ I thought. C. elegans, a much simpler creature, will change its direction and navigate simple obstacles when an edible proteinous chemoattractant is put in its proximity. The cattepillar is just more advanced at what it does. We know the location and connections of every one of C. elegans 213 neurons… Why can’t we make a device that will do the same thing yet? Too much anthropomorphism?
Why, eugenics of course ! The only way to change our nature.
First, selective breeding. Then genetic engineering.
Yes, there is a risk of botching it. No, we don’t have a better solution.
The ends don’t justify the means.