I emailed them to ask about that particular sentence, and got back that it was out of date and doesn’t accurately reflect their current position.
The issue is a lot more nuanced than just “singularity is bad” or “singularity is good” and these subtleties need to be made clear. Don’t assume that your line of thinking will be immediately obvious to readers.
[EDIT: … obvious to readers of the SIAI website, that is.]
The best strategies involve accelerating progress, decelerating progress, or not affecting progress. We each have some probabilistic estimate about which strategies are best.
The advantages of going fast include the possibility of actively taking positive steps towards a positive outcome. The disadvantages include the possibility of messing up. The disadvantages of attempting to go slowly include the difficulty of affecting very many teams. Unilaterally going slowly is likely to especially pointless—that just means you will lose.
My current expectation is that the successful team is likely to prioritise going rapidly quite highly, that the race will be quite intense, and that there is little point in aiming to lose.
I’d be kind-of surprised if others thought differently. For instance, does anyone really think it is practical or desirable to try and slow things down? The unabomber tried that. It doesn’t look terribly practical or desirable to me.
I think you’re missing my point. I’m not arguing about which strategy is best but simply about whether what’s on the website reflects what SIAI actually believes.
You are not concerned with which strategy is best? I see.
On reflection, “to accelerate the arrival of the Singularity in order to hasten its human benefits” does sound bad. If someone told me that was their explanation for why they wanted their program to go rapidly, my expectation would be that they were either confused or not telling the truth.
I emailed them to ask about that particular sentence, and got back that it was out of date and doesn’t accurately reflect their current position.
The issue is a lot more nuanced than just “singularity is bad” or “singularity is good” and these subtleties need to be made clear. Don’t assume that your line of thinking will be immediately obvious to readers.
[EDIT: … obvious to readers of the SIAI website, that is.]
The best strategies involve accelerating progress, decelerating progress, or not affecting progress. We each have some probabilistic estimate about which strategies are best.
The advantages of going fast include the possibility of actively taking positive steps towards a positive outcome. The disadvantages include the possibility of messing up. The disadvantages of attempting to go slowly include the difficulty of affecting very many teams. Unilaterally going slowly is likely to especially pointless—that just means you will lose.
My current expectation is that the successful team is likely to prioritise going rapidly quite highly, that the race will be quite intense, and that there is little point in aiming to lose.
I’d be kind-of surprised if others thought differently. For instance, does anyone really think it is practical or desirable to try and slow things down? The unabomber tried that. It doesn’t look terribly practical or desirable to me.
I think you’re missing my point. I’m not arguing about which strategy is best but simply about whether what’s on the website reflects what SIAI actually believes.
You are not concerned with which strategy is best? I see.
On reflection, “to accelerate the arrival of the Singularity in order to hasten its human benefits” does sound bad. If someone told me that was their explanation for why they wanted their program to go rapidly, my expectation would be that they were either confused or not telling the truth.