I think there are two potential problems with this argument, given below.
For these reasons, I think in practice everyone will keep dividing resources between both research and launching probes with existing technology, as soon as we have technology good enough to launch colonizing probes at all, even extremely slow ones at (say) 0.01c to neighbouring stars. Of course there’ll be different tradeoffs depending on the balance of costs: perhaps research is hard but probes are cheap. As a result, there will be some waste of resources as later, faster probes overtake earlier slow ones.
Competition:
If you were alone in the universe, or could speak for everyone even when they’re spread out across a galaxy, then your analysis would work. But if, deciding for yourself, you wait and research, then others could launch first. Since others generally have different values, and because people want things for themselves and their own clans, this is undesirable. So people will launch first to get first-mover advantage.
Suppose your research will eventually develop fast probes that can overtake their earlier, slow probes (though you can’t be certain ahead of time, when deciding not to launch). The sphere of space right around you will have been taken by others, which is not a good position to be in. They might be able to stop you from spreading your probes through their occupied space, if they choose. Or they could use their resources to interfere directly to stop you from launching probes.
Even others who are generally friendly may prefer to lose some time copying your fast probe technology, to having most of the universe settled by you instead of them.
In fact, it might be much easier to buy, copy or steal new technology than to develop it in the first place. Then if I know others are working on research, I may decide to launch early and try to free-ride on their research later. In particular, if people wno do research aren’t guaranteed to share the results with all of humanity—if not everyone is offered to be a part of the research project, or has resources to contribute to pay their way in, or lightspeed limits prevent cooperation across star systems—then those excluded will launch slow probes if they can, and hope to acquire the fast probe technology later.
Competition and value divergence may be prevented by a singleton AGI. Fear of such a singleton appearing will drive people to colonize other stars before it happens, and to keep expanding instead of slowing down to research. Some people believe that the only probably futures in which we colonize other stars at all, are ones in which a Friendly AI singleton is created first. This sounds probable to me, but not the only possibility.
Acquiring more resources:
(HaydnB already suggested the first part of this.)
Suppose it’s expected to take a long time to develop faster probes, compared with the time it takes to settle and develop new nearby systems with existing, slow probes. Then it would be worthwhile to divert some resources to expanding with slow probes, and then use the acquired resources—new settled systems—to speed up the research. This might lead to the same balance of “always send out probes of existing technology, and divert some percentage of resources to research for faster probes.”
Why would that be possible? If the research is expected to take a long time despite big investments, there is probably a limiting factor that can be raised by adding resources of some kind. Like matter/energy/space for building things and running experiments. Or like more sentient minds to do research.
Also, if new star systems can become highly developed quickly enough—compared with the time you need for your research—then it’s more likely faster probes will first be developed on one of the many worlds first settled by slow probes, than by those who stayed behind, simply because there are many new worlds and few old ones. For reasons of competitino, people will want to settle new worlds to increase the chance that they or their descendants will first develop new faster probes and colonize even more worlds.
Differences of distance:
Matter is clumped on different scales: as stars and planets, then star systems, then galaxies, then groups and clusters, superclusters, sheets and filaments. At each transition there is a jump of many orders of magnitude in the distances involved. So if expansion is going to stop temporarily, it will probably be at one of these points. (We’ve stopped for a long while after colonizing the entire planet.)
I think there are two potential problems with this argument, given below.
For these reasons, I think in practice everyone will keep dividing resources between both research and launching probes with existing technology, as soon as we have technology good enough to launch colonizing probes at all, even extremely slow ones at (say) 0.01c to neighbouring stars. Of course there’ll be different tradeoffs depending on the balance of costs: perhaps research is hard but probes are cheap. As a result, there will be some waste of resources as later, faster probes overtake earlier slow ones.
Competition:
If you were alone in the universe, or could speak for everyone even when they’re spread out across a galaxy, then your analysis would work. But if, deciding for yourself, you wait and research, then others could launch first. Since others generally have different values, and because people want things for themselves and their own clans, this is undesirable. So people will launch first to get first-mover advantage.
Suppose your research will eventually develop fast probes that can overtake their earlier, slow probes (though you can’t be certain ahead of time, when deciding not to launch). The sphere of space right around you will have been taken by others, which is not a good position to be in. They might be able to stop you from spreading your probes through their occupied space, if they choose. Or they could use their resources to interfere directly to stop you from launching probes.
Even others who are generally friendly may prefer to lose some time copying your fast probe technology, to having most of the universe settled by you instead of them.
In fact, it might be much easier to buy, copy or steal new technology than to develop it in the first place. Then if I know others are working on research, I may decide to launch early and try to free-ride on their research later. In particular, if people wno do research aren’t guaranteed to share the results with all of humanity—if not everyone is offered to be a part of the research project, or has resources to contribute to pay their way in, or lightspeed limits prevent cooperation across star systems—then those excluded will launch slow probes if they can, and hope to acquire the fast probe technology later.
Competition and value divergence may be prevented by a singleton AGI. Fear of such a singleton appearing will drive people to colonize other stars before it happens, and to keep expanding instead of slowing down to research. Some people believe that the only probably futures in which we colonize other stars at all, are ones in which a Friendly AI singleton is created first. This sounds probable to me, but not the only possibility.
Acquiring more resources:
(HaydnB already suggested the first part of this.)
Suppose it’s expected to take a long time to develop faster probes, compared with the time it takes to settle and develop new nearby systems with existing, slow probes. Then it would be worthwhile to divert some resources to expanding with slow probes, and then use the acquired resources—new settled systems—to speed up the research. This might lead to the same balance of “always send out probes of existing technology, and divert some percentage of resources to research for faster probes.”
Why would that be possible? If the research is expected to take a long time despite big investments, there is probably a limiting factor that can be raised by adding resources of some kind. Like matter/energy/space for building things and running experiments. Or like more sentient minds to do research.
Also, if new star systems can become highly developed quickly enough—compared with the time you need for your research—then it’s more likely faster probes will first be developed on one of the many worlds first settled by slow probes, than by those who stayed behind, simply because there are many new worlds and few old ones. For reasons of competitino, people will want to settle new worlds to increase the chance that they or their descendants will first develop new faster probes and colonize even more worlds.
Differences of distance:
Matter is clumped on different scales: as stars and planets, then star systems, then galaxies, then groups and clusters, superclusters, sheets and filaments. At each transition there is a jump of many orders of magnitude in the distances involved. So if expansion is going to stop temporarily, it will probably be at one of these points. (We’ve stopped for a long while after colonizing the entire planet.)
I really want to read Stuart’s response!
p.s. Thanks for the HT