Yes, that is the key question. I suspect that AGI will be human-level intelligent for some amount of time (maybe only a few seconds). So the question of how the AGI gets smarter than that is very important in analyzing the likelihood of FOOM.
Re: Elections—hundreds of millions dollars might affect whether Boehner or Pelosi was president of the United States in 2016. There’s essentially no chance that that amount of money could make me President in 2016.
Perhaps not make you president, but that amount of money and an absence of moral qualms could probably give you equivalent ability to get things done. President of the US is considerably more difficult than mayor of London (I think). However, both of those seem to be less than maximally efficient at accomplishing specific goals. For that, you’d want to become the CEO of a large company or something similar (which you could probably do with $1-500M, depending on the company. Or perhaps CIO or CFO if that suits your interests better.
Yes, that is the key question. I suspect that AGI will be human-level intelligent for some amount of time (maybe only a few seconds). So the question of how the AGI gets smarter than that is very important in analyzing the likelihood of FOOM.
Re: Elections—hundreds of millions dollars might affect whether Boehner or Pelosi was president of the United States in 2016. There’s essentially no chance that that amount of money could make me President in 2016.
Perhaps not make you president, but that amount of money and an absence of moral qualms could probably give you equivalent ability to get things done. President of the US is considerably more difficult than mayor of London (I think). However, both of those seem to be less than maximally efficient at accomplishing specific goals. For that, you’d want to become the CEO of a large company or something similar (which you could probably do with $1-500M, depending on the company. Or perhaps CIO or CFO if that suits your interests better.