Silly question for people who work at MIRI:
If you had the choice between receiving one flash drive from the 5-year-future MIRI employees, and acquiring one year’s supply of NZT-48, which would you pick?
I don’t work at MIRI but: in the movie the guy cranks out a novel in like one night. That’s years of work compressed into a few hours. He then proceeds to understand enough about markets to become extremely wealthy (thus negating the time travel informed betting angle), itself a many-year task. Most importantly: NZT-48 lets him figure out how to make MORE NZT-48 with fewer side effects, thus ensuring an indefinite supply. The NZT-48 is definitely the correct choice.
Approaching the question from the other direction: How much has MIRI really accomplished in the last 5 years? I think it’s safe to say that a large part of what they’ve achieved is in terms of popularization and awareness raising rather than actual research/information generated. If they sent back a flash-drive to five years ago, that wouldn’t jumpstart them anywhere near 5 years in terms of effort invested.
NZT-48 lets him figure out how to make MORE NZT-48
Presumably sending one flash drive back can be accomplished every 5 years in a classic time loop, letting MIRI figure out how to send MORE and more advanced data back, eventually designing the FAI in 5 years total, without having to worry about the competition.
But assuming that it works right, you’re gaining a five year head start—which is very significant. For one, you could save all the people who would die in those five years, and also, you would probably be able to colonize more galaxies in the future, etc…
It seems to be a more stable end-loop than the penultimate one. The second to last timeline will involve the FAI fooming and then deciding whatever the perfect way to ensure the loop outcome is.
You’re probably right about the lotteries thing, there’s a huge amount of possible money-making bets given future knowledge. Though I do think betting is the fastest way to make a huge pile of money.
Interesting thought: Maybe one should regularly buy lottery tickets so it’s not suspicious if you win through shenanigans.
Is the chance of such shenanigans high enough that the expected value of a lottery ticket is worth it? That seems like just a geeky and more roundabout way of committing the same error as the people who normally buy lottery tickets.
Well you have a lot more input on whether or not you’re going to be part of shenanigans. So if you have concrete plans to build a time machine, you can start buying lottery tickets in order to cover for your future plans. The same goes for if you’re going to manipulate or calculate the outcome of a lottery in a more mundane way. Someone who buys 1 lottery ticket in their life and wins 290,000,000 dollars is somewhat suspicious. Someone who’s been buying 1 every week for year is not.
Silly question for people who work at MIRI: If you had the choice between receiving one flash drive from the 5-year-future MIRI employees, and acquiring one year’s supply of NZT-48, which would you pick?
I don’t work at MIRI but: in the movie the guy cranks out a novel in like one night. That’s years of work compressed into a few hours. He then proceeds to understand enough about markets to become extremely wealthy (thus negating the time travel informed betting angle), itself a many-year task. Most importantly: NZT-48 lets him figure out how to make MORE NZT-48 with fewer side effects, thus ensuring an indefinite supply. The NZT-48 is definitely the correct choice.
Approaching the question from the other direction: How much has MIRI really accomplished in the last 5 years? I think it’s safe to say that a large part of what they’ve achieved is in terms of popularization and awareness raising rather than actual research/information generated. If they sent back a flash-drive to five years ago, that wouldn’t jumpstart them anywhere near 5 years in terms of effort invested.
Presumably sending one flash drive back can be accomplished every 5 years in a classic time loop, letting MIRI figure out how to send MORE and more advanced data back, eventually designing the FAI in 5 years total, without having to worry about the competition.
So the penultimate timelines would look something like
MIRI wins several lotteries by buying the correct lottery tickets.
MIRI uses several hundred million dollars to hire Google’s AI team.
Said team spends 4.9 years checking the work of itself/alternate teams hired in past runs.
This team decides we finally have proven-safe FAI.
And the “final” timeline goes like
Receive strange flash-drive, plug into computer, FOOM.
Almost. The final send-back is unnecessary.
Also, nothing as conspicuous as winning multiple lotteries.
But assuming that it works right, you’re gaining a five year head start—which is very significant. For one, you could save all the people who would die in those five years, and also, you would probably be able to colonize more galaxies in the future, etc…
True, but at this point the nascent FAI will do the correct utility calculation and decide what to do.
Ah yes, that is a good point—assuming the FAI has access to the same ability (the window might be very narrow, for example).
It seems to be a more stable end-loop than the penultimate one. The second to last timeline will involve the FAI fooming and then deciding whatever the perfect way to ensure the loop outcome is.
You’re probably right about the lotteries thing, there’s a huge amount of possible money-making bets given future knowledge. Though I do think betting is the fastest way to make a huge pile of money.
Interesting thought: Maybe one should regularly buy lottery tickets so it’s not suspicious if you win through shenanigans.
Is the chance of such shenanigans high enough that the expected value of a lottery ticket is worth it? That seems like just a geeky and more roundabout way of committing the same error as the people who normally buy lottery tickets.
Well you have a lot more input on whether or not you’re going to be part of shenanigans. So if you have concrete plans to build a time machine, you can start buying lottery tickets in order to cover for your future plans. The same goes for if you’re going to manipulate or calculate the outcome of a lottery in a more mundane way. Someone who buys 1 lottery ticket in their life and wins 290,000,000 dollars is somewhat suspicious. Someone who’s been buying 1 every week for year is not.