>From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>
>My Standing Challenge is as follows:
>
>"Name one concrete thing that you should be able to do, but that a Sysop
>won't let you do." It can't be an intangible quality, like "having
>nanobots fully under my control" - you have to name something specific
>that you want to do with those nanobots, but which you won't be able to do
>under the Sysop Scenario.
>
>No decrement of freedom is involved.
suppose i want to model some intelligences. they're human equivalent, or
maybe a little less than human level, in an abstract environment, to
investigate a minor point in game theory that i think is relevant to optimal
intelligence. In the course of the simulation, most of them will be hurt. at
the end of the simulation, i'll reclaim the mass involved, effectively
killing them all. Does the Sysop give an API error when i attempt this
experiment?
If it does, then the implication is that i'm restricted from thinking about
intelligences if i have the cycles neccesary to *model* them. I start
thinking about an intelligence, and if i do so in sufficient detail, then
the sysop grants it *sysopian citizenship* and suddenly i can't control what
happens to my own internal model? if so, then i'm restricted to thinking
about intelligences below a certain level of sophistication. and if i do so,
then an amount of "my" computronium, is suddenly beyond my control. which
understandably might piss me off.
if this is a repeat scenario, please send me a pointer to the appropriate
archive.
i KNOW this is a repeat, but i have to ask, assuming above scenario,(or at
least something else that pisses me off) why can't i just run from sysopian
space. it's control over things has to decrease with distance, unless it's
got some funky physics goin on. Can't i just run as fast as i can,
increasing my own intelligence/control/flexibility/tech until my lower level
of competence can compete with sysop-at-a-distance competence, effectively
"breaking free".
((please also send me appropriate archive point, if this is really old hat))
justin
www.idon't have a website.yawn
Gaussian Human
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:40 MDT