You vastly underestimate what it takes to make a lot of money. That he was lucky to get everything right in this one case doesn’t mean he would be able to to do it in any other case.
Getting everything right in the actual observed case certainly constitutes evidence of capability.
Making *the amount of money you are talking about here” isn’t hard. It is hard to make a ‘lot’ of money only when ‘lot’ corresponds to a whole heap more than this kind of small change. Intelligence, determination, hard work and persuassiveness are more than enough to make the kind of figures under consideration without having to enter high risk/high reward avenues.
I am not persuaded by your ‘Lady Gaga’ reference class tennis. Partly because Kurzweil fits it a whole lot better than Yudkowsky. Mostly because available evidence indicates that Lady Gaga would actually be able to achieve the moderately high level of success that we are talking about if she had selected a different economically viable social arena.
Getting everything right in the actual observed case certainly constitutes evidence of capability.
Making *the amount of money you are talking about here” isn’t hard. It is hard to make a ‘lot’ of money only when ‘lot’ corresponds to a whole heap more than this kind of small change. Intelligence, determination, hard work and persuassiveness are more than enough to make the kind of figures under consideration without having to enter high risk/high reward avenues.
I am not persuaded by your ‘Lady Gaga’ reference class tennis. Partly because Kurzweil fits it a whole lot better than Yudkowsky. Mostly because available evidence indicates that Lady Gaga would actually be able to achieve the moderately high level of success that we are talking about if she had selected a different economically viable social arena.