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Now this means, obviously, intelligences are plausible that will out-compete humans in *specific* classes of evolutionary environments. Does that mean we have a constructive path to AGI? Not so fast! Many intelligences can already outcompete us if you limit environment range!
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If the earth suddenly floods fully, sharks might eat us all. A Covid descendant could wipe us out. Hell an asteroid could outcompete us in the environment of colliding celestial bodies. Nobody would call these “pwned by AGI paperclip optimizer” scenarios. So what gives?
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I think AGIers have in mind 2 conditions: a) being outcompeted in a wide range of environments b) looking like “super” versions of us Many “intelligences” could satisfy 1) without being “general” in any satisfyingly apocalyptic way 2) is just anthropcentrism. Not interesting
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My belief is that no satisfying story will exist that fits the AGI template. All you’ll have is specific intelligences that will win in some conditions, lose in others against us, and will run the gamut from mutant viruses to toxic markets to brain-damaging memes.
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If you’re looking to be pwned by a god-like intelligence, go ahead and believe in the scenario, but there’s no good reason to treat it as anything more than a preferred religious scenario. It has no real utility beyond meeting an emotional need.
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There’s no useful activity or priority that emerges from that belief that doesn’t also emerge from ordinary engineering risk management. Bridge designers worry about bridges collapsing. Real ML system designers worry about concrete risks like classification bias. That’s... enough
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Basically, AGIs as a construct are technically unnecessary for thinking about AI. They add nothing beyond a few cute thought experiments. But they’re satisfying and enjoyable to think about for certain anthopocentric narratives.
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Afaict, history tells us that interesting AI emerges from building specific intelligences that solve specific classes of problems, and then evolving them in path-dependent open-ended ways. If any of them shows any signs of even narrow self-improvement, like AlphaGoZero, great!
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Replying to and
But I don’t think universal superiority is the claim. Claim is that there are 100x better optimisers than humans that operate in same problem space as we do. That sounds plausible, even if we have no proof of it yet. Did a podcast on this w/
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Replying to and
Yes, your comparison of this risk with an asteroid or a bioengineered attack risk is illustrative. Advances in intelligence pose an engineering risk. Though the claim is that it’s a different type of risk (than a bridge collapse) and we don’t understand this risk well enough.
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Replying to and
And my claim is that the “difference” is basically anthropomorphic projection. Basically a more complex version of painting a big scowling demon face on the asteroid and giving it a name like “Demonic Rocky Destructor” ☄️👺
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