Julian Morrison: Evolution is slow, and formal upper bounds can be established, but the real formal upper bounds are orders of magnitude above what Eliezer was claiming on Overcoming Bias and had been claiming privately for some time. The discussion on the thread lead to some simulations being run which showed this. Actual typical rates of evolution might be below the claimed upper bound most of the time, but that wasn’t what was being claimed. The claimed upper bound does hold for asexual reproduction.
I tend to disagree with the claim that finding intelligence was a fluke. The Cambrian Explosion shows how much can be created by evolution in a relatively short period, and a variety of other species show enough intelligence, sometimes grounded in very different neuroanatomy to, make it seem unlikely not to be fairly low hanging fruit. It’s easy to think of many things that evolution could build in enough time but which it didn’t build before it built human intelligence. Glass trees based on diatom silicon manipulation, smart bones that turn soft in response to excessive force and biological explosive driven projectiles top my casual list.
Julian Morrison: Evolution is slow, and formal upper bounds can be established, but the real formal upper bounds are orders of magnitude above what Eliezer was claiming on Overcoming Bias and had been claiming privately for some time. The discussion on the thread lead to some simulations being run which showed this. Actual typical rates of evolution might be below the claimed upper bound most of the time, but that wasn’t what was being claimed. The claimed upper bound does hold for asexual reproduction.
I tend to disagree with the claim that finding intelligence was a fluke. The Cambrian Explosion shows how much can be created by evolution in a relatively short period, and a variety of other species show enough intelligence, sometimes grounded in very different neuroanatomy to, make it seem unlikely not to be fairly low hanging fruit. It’s easy to think of many things that evolution could build in enough time but which it didn’t build before it built human intelligence. Glass trees based on diatom silicon manipulation, smart bones that turn soft in response to excessive force and biological explosive driven projectiles top my casual list.