[ExI] Wired article on AI risk

[Stefano Vaj]

On 31 May 2012 09:28, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On 30 May 2012 01:18, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Let's not get into the quantum processors, that will just make my
> >> brain hurt. Of course, it's the case because quantum computers exist
> >> only in theory.
> >
> > Seth Lloyd would argue that the universe would be a quantum computer...
>
> Last I checked, we weren't building universes...
>

No, sure. But what I mean is that if they exist (Penrose suspects, IMHO
without much ground, that organic brains would be ones), it shows that they
can exist, ie, they are feasible. So, all in all, either quantum computers
cannot be made, but they are not really required for AGI, or they do, but
the Principle of Computational Equivalence is only modestly affected (OK,
one needs a quantum co-processor not to wait until past the termic death of
the universe for the processing to complete).

It's a pretty big deal in practice of course. If you ran a perfect
> brain simulation on a very slow computer (compared to native brain
> running speeds), I wonder if it really would experience consciousness
> due to the time lags... It's an interesting thing to ponder. You
> certainly couldn't feed sensory information into it at real time
> speeds.
>

Mmhhh. Take a Turing test where the other party might be a civilisation one
billion light years away, or a sluggish AGI in the other room. Both would
exhibit the same latency.


> So, you are telling me that if a group of Gigantopithecus comes into
> the hunting area of two competing groups of Homo Erectus, that the
> Homo Erectus groups would not temporarily put aside their differences
> to eliminate the Gigantopithecus group? Come on, you can't really
> believe that. It's the competition for the niche that is the key here.
> I'm assuming that Gigantopithecus and Erectus would use more or less
> the same resources (food, water, etc.) and thus would be a competitor
> for the niche.
>

I expect their behaviour to be described by theory of games (ie, what is
the behaviour statistically rewarding the bearer of the genes that incline
to it?). In fact, however, while cooperation is a fundamental option for
survival strategy, it is not unheard of that members of different species
end up working together against similar heterogeneous groups. This is why
mythologies about the "rise of the machines" are as little persuasive as
the "war of races" or the "war of genders" which has been predicted so many
times. Heck, in our history, humans, machines, gods, and animals have
always been found fighting together against competing groups of a similar
composition.


-- 
Stefano Vaj
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