I agree with most of this. The relevant point is about AI in particular. More specifically, if an AGI is likely to start expanding to control its light cone at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, and this is a major part of the Filter, then we’d expect to see it. In contrast to something like nanotech for example that if it destroys civilization on a planet will be hard for observers to notice. Anthropic approaches (both SIA and SSA) argue for large amounts of filtration in front. The point is that observation suggests that AGI isn’t a major part of that filtration if that’s correct.
An example that might help illustrate the point better. Imagine that someone is worried that the filtration of civilizations generally occurs due to them running some sort of physics experiment that causes a false vacuum collapse that expands at less than the speed of light (say c/10,000). We can discount the likelyhood of such an event because we would see from basic astronomy the result of the civilizations that have wiped themselves out in how they impact the stars near them.
I agree with most of this. The relevant point is about AI in particular. More specifically, if an AGI is likely to start expanding to control its light cone at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, and this is a major part of the Filter, then we’d expect to see it. In contrast to something like nanotech for example that if it destroys civilization on a planet will be hard for observers to notice. Anthropic approaches (both SIA and SSA) argue for large amounts of filtration in front. The point is that observation suggests that AGI isn’t a major part of that filtration if that’s correct.
An example that might help illustrate the point better. Imagine that someone is worried that the filtration of civilizations generally occurs due to them running some sort of physics experiment that causes a false vacuum collapse that expands at less than the speed of light (say c/10,000). We can discount the likelyhood of such an event because we would see from basic astronomy the result of the civilizations that have wiped themselves out in how they impact the stars near them.