8. Why would the copy cooperate in the experiment? Perhaps because they simply were on board with the goal (I certainly would cooperate with a copy of myself trying to learn about meditation!). Perhaps because they were paid (in the form of a nice retirement after the experiment). Perhaps because they saw themselves and their copies (and/or original) as the same person (or at least cared a lot about these very similar people). A couple of factors that would facilitate this kind of experimentation: (a) digital people could examine their own state of mind to get a sense of the odds of cooperation (since the copy would have the same state of mind); (b) if only a small number of digital people experimented, large numbers of people could still learn from the results.
2. The movie The Matrix gives a decent intuition for the idea with its fully-immersive virtual reality, but unlike the heroes of The Matrix, a digital person need not be connected to any physical person—they could exist as pure software.
The agents (“bad guys”) are more like digital people than the heroes are. In fact, one extensively copies himself.
4. For example, when multiple teams of digital people need to coordinate on a project, they might speed up (or slow down) particular steps and teams in order to make sure that each piece of the project is completed just on time. This would allow more complex, “fragile” plans to work out. (This point is from Age of Em Chapter 17, “Preparation” section.)
6. Without human bodies—and depending on what kinds of robots were available—digital people might not be good substitutes for humans when it comes to jobs that rely heavily on human physical abilities, or jobs that require in-person interaction with biological humans.
However, digital people would likely be able to do everything needed to cause an explosive economic growth, even if they couldn’t do everything. In particular, it seems they could do everything needed to increase the supply of computers, and thereby increase the population of digital people.
Creating more computing power requires (a) raw materials—mostly metal; (b) research and development—to design the computers; (c) manufacturing—to carry out the design and turn raw materials into computers; (d) energy. Digital people could potentially make all of these things a great deal cheaper and more plentiful:
Raw materials. It seems that mining could, in principle, be done entirely with robots. Digital people could design and instruct these robots to extract raw materials as efficiently as possible.
Research and development. My sense is that this is a major input into the cost of computing today: the work needed to design ever-better microprocessors and other computer parts. Digital people could do this entirely virtually.
Manufacturing. My sense is that this is the other major input into the cost of computing today. Like mining, it could in principle be done entirely with robots.
Energy. Solar panels are also subject to (a) better research and development; (b) robot-driven manufacturing. Good enough design and manufacturing of solar panels could lead to radically cheaper and more plentiful energy.
Space exploration. Raw materials, energy, and “real estate” are all super-abundant outside of Earth. If digital people could design and manufacture spaceships, along with robots that could build solar panels and computer factories, they could take advantage of massive resources compared to what we have on earth.
7. It is debatable whether the world is getting somewhat better at these things, somewhat worse, or neither. But it seems pretty clear that the progress isn’t as impressive as in computing.
9. I’d also expect them to be able to try more radical things. For example, in today’s world, it’s unlikely that you could run a randomized experiment on what happens if people currently living in New York just decide to move to Chicago. It would be too hard to find people willing to be randomly assigned to stay in New York or move to Chicago. But in a world of digital people, experimenters could pay New Yorkers to make copies of themselves who move to Chicago. And after the experiment, each Chicago copy that wished it had stayed in New York could choose to replace itself with another copy of the New York version. (The latter brings up questions about philosophy of personal identity, but for social science purposes, all that matters is that some people would be happy to participate in experiments due to this option, and everyone could learn from the experiments.)
12. See the estimates in Astronomical Waste for a rough sense of how big the numbers can get here (although these estimates are extremely speculative).
Footnotes Container
This comment is a container for our temporary “footnotes-as-comments” implementation that gives us hover-over-footnotes.
8. Why would the copy cooperate in the experiment? Perhaps because they simply were on board with the goal (I certainly would cooperate with a copy of myself trying to learn about meditation!). Perhaps because they were paid (in the form of a nice retirement after the experiment). Perhaps because they saw themselves and their copies (and/or original) as the same person (or at least cared a lot about these very similar people). A couple of factors that would facilitate this kind of experimentation: (a) digital people could examine their own state of mind to get a sense of the odds of cooperation (since the copy would have the same state of mind); (b) if only a small number of digital people experimented, large numbers of people could still learn from the results.
1.The best example I can think of, but surely not the only one.
2. The movie The Matrix gives a decent intuition for the idea with its fully-immersive virtual reality, but unlike the heroes of The Matrix, a digital person need not be connected to any physical person—they could exist as pure software.
The agents (“bad guys”) are more like digital people than the heroes are. In fact, one extensively copies himself.
3. See Age of Em Chapter 6, starting with “Regarding the computation …”
4. For example, when multiple teams of digital people need to coordinate on a project, they might speed up (or slow down) particular steps and teams in order to make sure that each piece of the project is completed just on time. This would allow more complex, “fragile” plans to work out. (This point is from Age of Em Chapter 17, “Preparation” section.)
5. See Age of Em Chapter 11, “Retirement” section.
6. Without human bodies—and depending on what kinds of robots were available—digital people might not be good substitutes for humans when it comes to jobs that rely heavily on human physical abilities, or jobs that require in-person interaction with biological humans.
However, digital people would likely be able to do everything needed to cause an explosive economic growth, even if they couldn’t do everything. In particular, it seems they could do everything needed to increase the supply of computers, and thereby increase the population of digital people.
Creating more computing power requires (a) raw materials—mostly metal; (b) research and development—to design the computers; (c) manufacturing—to carry out the design and turn raw materials into computers; (d) energy. Digital people could potentially make all of these things a great deal cheaper and more plentiful:
Raw materials. It seems that mining could, in principle, be done entirely with robots. Digital people could design and instruct these robots to extract raw materials as efficiently as possible.
Research and development. My sense is that this is a major input into the cost of computing today: the work needed to design ever-better microprocessors and other computer parts. Digital people could do this entirely virtually.
Manufacturing. My sense is that this is the other major input into the cost of computing today. Like mining, it could in principle be done entirely with robots.
Energy. Solar panels are also subject to (a) better research and development; (b) robot-driven manufacturing. Good enough design and manufacturing of solar panels could lead to radically cheaper and more plentiful energy.
Space exploration. Raw materials, energy, and “real estate” are all super-abundant outside of Earth. If digital people could design and manufacture spaceships, along with robots that could build solar panels and computer factories, they could take advantage of massive resources compared to what we have on earth.
7. It is debatable whether the world is getting somewhat better at these things, somewhat worse, or neither. But it seems pretty clear that the progress isn’t as impressive as in computing.
9. I’d also expect them to be able to try more radical things. For example, in today’s world, it’s unlikely that you could run a randomized experiment on what happens if people currently living in New York just decide to move to Chicago. It would be too hard to find people willing to be randomly assigned to stay in New York or move to Chicago. But in a world of digital people, experimenters could pay New Yorkers to make copies of themselves who move to Chicago. And after the experiment, each Chicago copy that wished it had stayed in New York could choose to replace itself with another copy of the New York version. (The latter brings up questions about philosophy of personal identity, but for social science purposes, all that matters is that some people would be happy to participate in experiments due to this option, and everyone could learn from the experiments.)
10. See footnote from the first bullet point on why people’s copies might cooperate with them.
11. And air for cooling.
12. See the estimates in Astronomical Waste for a rough sense of how big the numbers can get here (although these estimates are extremely speculative).