Regardless of the composition of LW posters, this is not a probable hypothesis:
Power bases in business and politics that have been forged over decades, if not centuries, are being threatened with extinction, and they know it. So the owners of that power are trying to hold on. They think they can do that by dragging us backward. They think that, by growing the public’s dependency on government, by taking away the entrepreneurial spirit and rewards and by limiting personal freedoms, they can slow down progress.
A big, scary “they” is, in general, a silly concept. A big, scary ’they” focused on impeding technological progress is silly on enough fronts that it bears expressly pointing out the silliness, lest it quietly adjust one’s priors without one noticing.
Edit: An explanation of downvotes would me understand where I went wrong.
Since at least Adam Smith, we’ve known that you don’t need a big collaborating cabal conspiring toward a common end to have the net effect of their actions be quite like a big invisible fist with a malevolent purpose.
The first thing that comes to mind is the decline of China’s scientific and technological output starting around the 14th century. Up until that point, Chinese civilization had been well ahead of the West by most technological measures; for example, Chinese blast furnaces are known from the 1st century BC, while the technology didn’t make it to the West until the mid-12th century AD. Sometime during the Ming Dynasty, however, social changes reversed this trend; I couldn’t point to any one dominant cause, and as best I know scientific research was never officially discouraged during this period, but the effect is fairly well established.
One plausible theory that I’ve heard is that changes to the governmental structure around that time underweighted the incentives for studying math and natural philosophy among the educated classes, in favor of law, classics, administrative topics, and other subjects covered on the civil service exams of the time. Intuitively that seems a little too tidy to me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a major contributing factor.
One of the books I read on the topic argued that a proto-Industrial Revolution was getting started with the iron and coal deposits in, IIRC, the Sung, but then the emperor/empire took them over as a state monopoly, which ended that.
There is the potential for governments to interfere with research leading to AGI. There are not that many researchers directly involved, and there are generally known widespread consequences which could result. Most likely, this could only delay the appearance of AGI and not prevent it.
What if all the history of the universe, life, and human history were just the unlikely precursor to the appearance of an AGI? What if we’re just part one of the many mechanisms for the generation of a “Boltzmann Brain?”
(By the way, I was able to predict that the military had developed technology to beam thoughts into people’s heads using just a priori reasoning about the brain, microwaves, and the probable goals and capabilities of the military and intelligence agencies. Then a quick Google search led me to that article. Pretty sure I deserve like 5,000 rationality points. WHO’S THE CRAZY ONE NOW, LESSWRONG?!!!!!??!!!!!? AHAHAHA. AHAHAHAHA. AHAHAHA.)
You know, I had been just about to observe that your recent contributions had been gaining you a dangerous amount of credibility. It seems you spotted the problem before I did and promptly rectified it!
Regardless of the composition of LW posters, this is not a probable hypothesis:
A big, scary “they” is, in general, a silly concept. A big, scary ’they” focused on impeding technological progress is silly on enough fronts that it bears expressly pointing out the silliness, lest it quietly adjust one’s priors without one noticing.
Edit: An explanation of downvotes would me understand where I went wrong.
Since at least Adam Smith, we’ve known that you don’t need a big collaborating cabal conspiring toward a common end to have the net effect of their actions be quite like a big invisible fist with a malevolent purpose.
Are there evidence of major cabal-like-net-effects impeding the progress of technology that I’m not aware of?
The first thing that comes to mind is the decline of China’s scientific and technological output starting around the 14th century. Up until that point, Chinese civilization had been well ahead of the West by most technological measures; for example, Chinese blast furnaces are known from the 1st century BC, while the technology didn’t make it to the West until the mid-12th century AD. Sometime during the Ming Dynasty, however, social changes reversed this trend; I couldn’t point to any one dominant cause, and as best I know scientific research was never officially discouraged during this period, but the effect is fairly well established.
One plausible theory that I’ve heard is that changes to the governmental structure around that time underweighted the incentives for studying math and natural philosophy among the educated classes, in favor of law, classics, administrative topics, and other subjects covered on the civil service exams of the time. Intuitively that seems a little too tidy to me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a major contributing factor.
One of the books I read on the topic argued that a proto-Industrial Revolution was getting started with the iron and coal deposits in, IIRC, the Sung, but then the emperor/empire took them over as a state monopoly, which ended that.
There is the potential for governments to interfere with research leading to AGI. There are not that many researchers directly involved, and there are generally known widespread consequences which could result. Most likely, this could only delay the appearance of AGI and not prevent it.
What if all the history of the universe, life, and human history were just the unlikely precursor to the appearance of an AGI? What if we’re just part one of the many mechanisms for the generation of a “Boltzmann Brain?”
Not to mention, ya know, crazy stuff.
(By the way, I was able to predict that the military had developed technology to beam thoughts into people’s heads using just a priori reasoning about the brain, microwaves, and the probable goals and capabilities of the military and intelligence agencies. Then a quick Google search led me to that article. Pretty sure I deserve like 5,000 rationality points. WHO’S THE CRAZY ONE NOW, LESSWRONG?!!!!!??!!!!!? AHAHAHA. AHAHAHAHA. AHAHAHA.)
You know, I had been just about to observe that your recent contributions had been gaining you a dangerous amount of credibility. It seems you spotted the problem before I did and promptly rectified it!
You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?
This:
You’re talking like a loony again. For a while you weren’t. Now you are being disingenuous.
Nuh-uh.
Microwave auditory effect is the mechanism.
Any comments on the post, Mitchell_Porter? I expect you have something to say.
Someone should think about failure modes for an AI programmed with these axioms.
The second should really come before the first. America before God? WTF?