AGI 
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There's an invention that the scientific community is about to discover. It's 10, 15 years in the future -- maybe less. No one knows what it is, or what form it will take, or what its applications will be. One thing is certain: getting it will mean an instant $100 trillion.
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It's insane how uncritically many non-technical people are accepting this nonsense. I guess this really shows the power of investing a lot of money in PR.
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The medical sciences equivalent: "we're working on developing a formula that can cure everything, including death... it will upend life as we know it. With a $1B investment, it may only be 10 years away"
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The material sciences equivalent: "we're working on a matter printer -- it could materialize any object in seconds, purely from a data specification, with any material... it will make obsolete all of manufacturing. With a $1B investment, it may only be 10 years away"
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But if computer science says it, somehow all semblance of critical thinking goes away? Although -- these are not even fair comparisons. The cure to everything & the matter printer are much-better defined: it's clear what their implications are and why they would be valuable.
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The main reason I dislike this nonsense: generality in artificial intelligence is a serious research topic, with real stakes & real applications, with both near-term & long-term progress to be made. These ridiculous sci-fi stories, that shape public perception, are an obstacle.
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It's like... working on blood testing research in a world where a secretive company has raised $1.4B to build a mysterious device that can test anything from a single blood drop. In the mind of the public, it's the only narrative they can think of when you bring up your research
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And yet -- it's serious, life-saving research. No thanks to cult-like profiteers who overpromise and underdeliver.
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End of conversation
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Inventing terms that exploit subtle connotations and general misunderstanding. in this respect AGI is brilliant.
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AGI is purely a claim of superiority of computer technology to come, nothing else. Techno utopian cultures have a soft spot for such claims, because it matches their axioms.
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People are easier to fool with promises of software. They look at Facebook or Google and think that it was overnight success, that with the right idea you can get huge returns. Plus the value given by AGI is many times greater than that of search engine or social media.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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