Somewhat related, AGI is such an enormously difficult topic, requiring intimate familiarity with so many different fields, that the vast majority of people (and I count myself among them) simply aren’t able to contribute effectively to it.
I’d be interested to know if he thinks there are any singularity-related issues that are important to be worked on, but somewhat more accessible, that are more in need of contributions of man-hours rather than genius-level intellect. Is the only way a person of more modest talents can contribute through donations?
Depends on what you mean by ‘modest’. Probably 60% of Americans could contribute donations without serious lifestyle consequences and 20% of Americans could contribute over a quarter of their incomes without serious consequences. By contrast, only 10% have the reasoning abilities to identify the best large category of causes and only 1% have the reasoning abilities to identify the very best cause without a large luck element being involved. By working hard, most of that 1% could also become part of the affluent 20% of Americans who could make large donations. A similar fraction might be able to help via fund-raising efforts and by aggressively networking and sharing the contacts that they are able to build with us. A smaller but only modestly smaller fraction might be able to meaningfully contribute to SIAI’s effort via seriously committed offers of volunteer effort, but definitely not via volunteer efforts uncoupled to serious commitment. Almost no-one can do FAI, or even recognize talent at a level capable of doing FAI, but if more people were doing the easier things it wouldn’t be nearly so hard to find people who could do the core work.
Almost no-one can do FAI, or even recognize talent at a level capable of doing FAI, but if more people were doing the easier things it wouldn’t be nearly so hard to find people who could do the core work.
SIAI keeps supporting this attitude, yet I don’t believe it, at least in the way it’s presented. A good mathematician who gets to understand the problem statement and succeeds in weeding out the standard misunderstanding can contribute as well as anyone, at this stage where we have no field. Creating a programme that would allow people to reliably get to work on the problem requires material to build upon, and there is still nothing, no matter of what quality. Systematizing the connections with existing science, trying to locate the place of FAI project in it, is something that only requires expertise in that science and understanding of FAI problem statement. At the very least, a dozen steps in, we’ll have a useful curriculum, to get folks up to speed in the right direction.
We have some experience with this, but if you want to discuss the details more with myself or some other SIAI people we will be happy to do so, and probably to have you come visit some time and get some experience with what we do. You may have ways of contributing substantially, theoretically or managerially. We’ll have to see.
Perhaps what we should do is take all our funds and create a school for AI researchers. This would be an investment for the long hall. You and I may not be super geniuses, but I sure think I could raise some super geniuses.
Also, I feel like this topic deserves more than one comment thread.
Somewhat related, AGI is such an enormously difficult topic, requiring intimate familiarity with so many different fields, that the vast majority of people (and I count myself among them) simply aren’t able to contribute effectively to it.
I’d be interested to know if he thinks there are any singularity-related issues that are important to be worked on, but somewhat more accessible, that are more in need of contributions of man-hours rather than genius-level intellect. Is the only way a person of more modest talents can contribute through donations?
Depends on what you mean by ‘modest’. Probably 60% of Americans could contribute donations without serious lifestyle consequences and 20% of Americans could contribute over a quarter of their incomes without serious consequences. By contrast, only 10% have the reasoning abilities to identify the best large category of causes and only 1% have the reasoning abilities to identify the very best cause without a large luck element being involved. By working hard, most of that 1% could also become part of the affluent 20% of Americans who could make large donations. A similar fraction might be able to help via fund-raising efforts and by aggressively networking and sharing the contacts that they are able to build with us. A smaller but only modestly smaller fraction might be able to meaningfully contribute to SIAI’s effort via seriously committed offers of volunteer effort, but definitely not via volunteer efforts uncoupled to serious commitment. Almost no-one can do FAI, or even recognize talent at a level capable of doing FAI, but if more people were doing the easier things it wouldn’t be nearly so hard to find people who could do the core work.
SIAI keeps supporting this attitude, yet I don’t believe it, at least in the way it’s presented. A good mathematician who gets to understand the problem statement and succeeds in weeding out the standard misunderstanding can contribute as well as anyone, at this stage where we have no field. Creating a programme that would allow people to reliably get to work on the problem requires material to build upon, and there is still nothing, no matter of what quality. Systematizing the connections with existing science, trying to locate the place of FAI project in it, is something that only requires expertise in that science and understanding of FAI problem statement. At the very least, a dozen steps in, we’ll have a useful curriculum, to get folks up to speed in the right direction.
We have some experience with this, but if you want to discuss the details more with myself or some other SIAI people we will be happy to do so, and probably to have you come visit some time and get some experience with what we do. You may have ways of contributing substantially, theoretically or managerially. We’ll have to see.
Sorry for the bump, but...
Perhaps what we should do is take all our funds and create a school for AI researchers. This would be an investment for the long hall. You and I may not be super geniuses, but I sure think I could raise some super geniuses.
Also, I feel like this topic deserves more than one comment thread.