The negation of “a Singularity will occur” is not “everything will stay the same”, it’s “a Singularity as you describe it probably won’t occur”. I’ve no idea why you (and Eliezer elsewhere in the thread) are making this obviously wrong argument.
Perhaps I was simply unclear. Both my immediately prior comment and its grandparent were arguing only that there should be a nonzero expectation of a technological Singularity, even from a reference class standpoint.
The reference class of predictions about the Singularity can, as I showed in the grandparent, include a wide variety of predictions about major changes in the human condition. The complement or negation of that reference class is a class of predictions that things will remain largely the same, technologically.
Often, when people appear to be making an obviously wrong argument in this forum, it’s a matter of communication rather than massive logic failure.
Whaddaya mean by “negation of reference class”? Let’s see, you negate each individual prediction in the class and then take the conjunction (AND) of all those negations: “everything will stay the same”. This is obviously false. But this doesn’t imply that each individual negation is false, only that at least one of them is! I’d be the first to agree that at least one technological change will occur, but don’t bullshit me by insinuating you know which particular one! Could you please defend your argument again?
The negation of “a Singularity will occur” is not “everything will stay the same”, it’s “a Singularity as you describe it probably won’t occur”. I’ve no idea why you (and Eliezer elsewhere in the thread) are making this obviously wrong argument.
Perhaps I was simply unclear. Both my immediately prior comment and its grandparent were arguing only that there should be a nonzero expectation of a technological Singularity, even from a reference class standpoint.
The reference class of predictions about the Singularity can, as I showed in the grandparent, include a wide variety of predictions about major changes in the human condition. The complement or negation of that reference class is a class of predictions that things will remain largely the same, technologically.
Often, when people appear to be making an obviously wrong argument in this forum, it’s a matter of communication rather than massive logic failure.
Whaddaya mean by “negation of reference class”? Let’s see, you negate each individual prediction in the class and then take the conjunction (AND) of all those negations: “everything will stay the same”. This is obviously false. But this doesn’t imply that each individual negation is false, only that at least one of them is! I’d be the first to agree that at least one technological change will occur, but don’t bullshit me by insinuating you know which particular one! Could you please defend your argument again?