if you can provide us with some examples—say, ten or twenty—of scientists who had success using this approach.
Phil, the low prevalence of breakthroughs made using this approach is evidence of science’s historical link with serendipity. What it is not is evidence that ‘Bayesian precision’ as Eliezer describes it is not a necessary approach when the nature of the problem calls for it.
Recall the sequence around ‘Faster than Einstein’. From a top-down capital-S Science point of view, there’s nothing wrong with pootling around waiting for that ‘hmmm, that’s odd’ moment. As you say, science has been ratcheting forward like that for a long while.
However, when you’re just one guy with limited resources who wishes to take a mind-boggling step forward in a difficult domain in its infancy, the answer space is small enough that pootling won’t get you far at all. (Doubly so when a single misstep kills you dead, as Eliezer’s fond of saying.) No-one will start coding a browser and stumble across a sentient piece of code (à la Fleming / Penicillin), let alone a seed FAI. That kind of advance requires a large number of steps, each one technically precise and reliant on its predecessors. Or so I’m told. ;)
People are very fond of saying that General Intelligence may be outside the human sphere of ability—by definition too difficult for us. Well unless someone tries as hard as it’s possible to try, how will we ever know?
@Phil G:
if you can provide us with some examples—say, ten or twenty—of scientists who had success using this approach.
Phil, the low prevalence of breakthroughs made using this approach is evidence of science’s historical link with serendipity. What it is not is evidence that ‘Bayesian precision’ as Eliezer describes it is not a necessary approach when the nature of the problem calls for it.
Recall the sequence around ‘Faster than Einstein’. From a top-down capital-S Science point of view, there’s nothing wrong with pootling around waiting for that ‘hmmm, that’s odd’ moment. As you say, science has been ratcheting forward like that for a long while.
However, when you’re just one guy with limited resources who wishes to take a mind-boggling step forward in a difficult domain in its infancy, the answer space is small enough that pootling won’t get you far at all. (Doubly so when a single misstep kills you dead, as Eliezer’s fond of saying.) No-one will start coding a browser and stumble across a sentient piece of code (à la Fleming / Penicillin), let alone a seed FAI. That kind of advance requires a large number of steps, each one technically precise and reliant on its predecessors. Or so I’m told. ;)
People are very fond of saying that General Intelligence may be outside the human sphere of ability—by definition too difficult for us. Well unless someone tries as hard as it’s possible to try, how will we ever know?