[ExI] Wrath of the Old Ones

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 4:54 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

von Neumann probes also show how you can maintain the "unfailing will" -
just outsource it to your machinery while you sleep. They can implement
your policy, and wake up the nightguard when something unexpected happens.

### We are talking about an abyss of time. Will it be possible to assure
flawless functioning of a an intelligence, whether you call it a machine or
an upload, over a trillion of years? A machine capable of detecting new
parasites, ones it has never seen before, therefore in need of a
flexibility, careful calibration of behaviors in response to a never ending
barrage of new threats? Maybe, our little corner of configuration space of
intelligent minds is a very biased and small sample, so maybe you can build
the ever-faithful, god-like guardian - the subject matter of FAI research
but adding the immensity of time to the equation certainly does not make it
easier.
 ----------------

>
> Analysing the aestivation scenario, I have become mildly sceptical of it
> as a good Fermi answer. There is a lot of waste going on (just consider the
> recent news about the 11 orphan galaxies - *entire galaxies* are being
> lost!) and we are *so* close to launching the probes.
>

### I may have been speaking in an obscure way, actually thinking about the
future, not the present - I believe that the Old Ones have not been born
yet, unless some of us get stupendously lucky :)

Rafal
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