I don’t believe FAI is ready to be an engineering project. As Richard Hamming would put it, “we do not have an attack”. You can’t build a 747 before some hobbyist invents the first flyer. The “throw money and people at it” approach has been tried many times with AGI, how is FAI different? I think right now most progress should come from people like you, satisfying their personal interest. As for the best use of SIAI money, I’d use Givewell to get rid of it, or just throw some parties and have fun all around, because money isn’t the limiting factor in making math breakthroughs happen.
I think right now most progress should come from people like you, satisfying their personal interest.
I think the problem with that is that most people have multiple interests, or their interests can shift (perhaps subconsciously) based on considerations of money and status. FAI-related fields have to compete with other fields for a small pool of highly capable researchers, and the lack of money and status (which would come with funding) does not help.
I don’t believe FAI is ready to be an engineering project.
Me either, but I think that one, SIAI can use the money to support FAI-related research in the mean time, and two, given that time is not on our side, it seems like a good idea to build up the necessary institutional infrastructure to support FAI as an engineering project, just in case someone makes an unexpected theoretical breakthrough.
I don’t believe FAI is ready to be an engineering project. As Richard Hamming would put it, “we do not have an attack”. You can’t build a 747 before some hobbyist invents the first flyer. The “throw money and people at it” approach has been tried many times with AGI, how is FAI different? I think right now most progress should come from people like you, satisfying their personal interest. As for the best use of SIAI money, I’d use Givewell to get rid of it, or just throw some parties and have fun all around, because money isn’t the limiting factor in making math breakthroughs happen.
I think the problem with that is that most people have multiple interests, or their interests can shift (perhaps subconsciously) based on considerations of money and status. FAI-related fields have to compete with other fields for a small pool of highly capable researchers, and the lack of money and status (which would come with funding) does not help.
Me either, but I think that one, SIAI can use the money to support FAI-related research in the mean time, and two, given that time is not on our side, it seems like a good idea to build up the necessary institutional infrastructure to support FAI as an engineering project, just in case someone makes an unexpected theoretical breakthrough.