gjm comments on An overall schema for the friendly AI problems: self-referential convergence criteria

gjm 17 Jul 2015 16:20 UTC
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The failures have to die out.

I’m not sure that’s true. Imagine some glorious postbiological future in which people (or animals or ideas or whatever) can reproduce without limit. There are two competing replicators A and B, and the only difference is that A replicates slightly faster than B. After a while there will be vastly more of A around than of B, even if nothing dies. For many purposes, that might be enough.
- Lumifer 17 Jul 2015 16:22 UTC
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  After a while there will be vastly more of A around than of B
  
  So, in this scenario, what evolved?
  - gjm 17 Jul 2015 16:53 UTC
    2 points
    Parent
    The distribution of A and B in the population.
    - Lumifer 17 Jul 2015 16:54 UTC
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      I don’t think this is an appropriate use of the word “evolution”.
      - gjm 17 Jul 2015 18:09 UTC
        7 points
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        Why not? It’s a standard one in the biological context. E.g.,
        
        “In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.”
        
        which according to a talk.origins FAQ is from this textbook: Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974