knowledge alone is not enough, you also need to put in a lot of work (which is often measured in centuries) in order to apply it.
Understood that, too! But one can optimize and outsource a lot. Conquistadors employed Indians, enslaved Aztecs and Incas. Besides, the subjective time of an upload can be vast. A good idea can trim a lot of work need to be done. And at least my upload would be full of ideas.
Agreed; just as a single conquistador—or better yet, a modern engineer—transported into the Roman Empire would be full of ideas. He would know how to forge steel, refine petroleum, design electronic circuits, genetically engineer plants and animals, write software, plus many other things. But he wouldn’t be able to actually use most of that knowledge.
In order to write software, you need a computer. In order to build a computer, you need… well, you need a lot of stuff that outsourced Aztec (or Roman) slaves just wouldn’t be able to provide. You could enslave everyone on the continent, and you still wouldn’t be able to make a single CPU. Sure, if you were patient, very lucky, and long-lived, you could probably get something going within the next century or so. But that’s hardly a “FOOM”, and the Romans would have a hundred years to stop you, if they decided that your plans for the future aren’t to their liking.
But that’s hardly a “FOOM”, and the Romans would have a hundred years to stop you,
Exactly. And here the parable breaks down. The upload just might have those centuries. Virtual subjective time of thousands of years to devise a cunning plan, before we the humans even discuss their advantage. Yudkowsky has wrote a short story about this. http://lesswrong.com/lw/qk/that_alien_message/
Bugmaster’s point was that it takes a century of action by external parties, not a century of subjective thinking time. The timetable doesn’t get advanced all that much by super-intelligence. Real-world changes happen on real-world timetables. And yes, the rate of change might be exponential, but exponential curves grow slowly at first.
And meanwhile, other things are happening in that century that might upset the plans and that cannot be arbitrarily controlled even by super-intelligence.
Exponential curves grow at the same rate all the time. That is, if you zoom in on the x^2 graph at any point at any scale, it will look exactly the same as it did before you zoomed in.
I think we are using “rate” in different ways. The absolute rate of change per unit time for an exponential is hardly constant; If you look at the segment of e^x near, say, e^10, it’s growing much faster than it is at e^(-10).
Understood that, too! But one can optimize and outsource a lot. Conquistadors employed Indians, enslaved Aztecs and Incas. Besides, the subjective time of an upload can be vast. A good idea can trim a lot of work need to be done. And at least my upload would be full of ideas.
Agreed; just as a single conquistador—or better yet, a modern engineer—transported into the Roman Empire would be full of ideas. He would know how to forge steel, refine petroleum, design electronic circuits, genetically engineer plants and animals, write software, plus many other things. But he wouldn’t be able to actually use most of that knowledge.
In order to write software, you need a computer. In order to build a computer, you need… well, you need a lot of stuff that outsourced Aztec (or Roman) slaves just wouldn’t be able to provide. You could enslave everyone on the continent, and you still wouldn’t be able to make a single CPU. Sure, if you were patient, very lucky, and long-lived, you could probably get something going within the next century or so. But that’s hardly a “FOOM”, and the Romans would have a hundred years to stop you, if they decided that your plans for the future aren’t to their liking.
Exactly. And here the parable breaks down. The upload just might have those centuries. Virtual subjective time of thousands of years to devise a cunning plan, before we the humans even discuss their advantage. Yudkowsky has wrote a short story about this. http://lesswrong.com/lw/qk/that_alien_message/
Bugmaster’s point was that it takes a century of action by external parties, not a century of subjective thinking time. The timetable doesn’t get advanced all that much by super-intelligence. Real-world changes happen on real-world timetables. And yes, the rate of change might be exponential, but exponential curves grow slowly at first.
And meanwhile, other things are happening in that century that might upset the plans and that cannot be arbitrarily controlled even by super-intelligence.
Err… minor quibble.
Exponential curves grow at the same rate all the time. That is, if you zoom in on the x^2 graph at any point at any scale, it will look exactly the same as it did before you zoomed in.
I think we are using “rate” in different ways. The absolute rate of change per unit time for an exponential is hardly constant; If you look at the segment of e^x near, say, e^10, it’s growing much faster than it is at e^(-10).
asr got my point exactly right.