Ben Goertzel wrote:
>
> Second, stating that the Singularity will end such problems forever, with
> such certainty, is sort of silly in my view. We really don't know how long
> a Singularity will take to come about, or what its actual effects will be.
> Maybe it will take 30 years to create the Singularity, in which case a hell
> of a lot of good can be done by educating the poor now.
How do you resolve issues like these? Split your efforts between both
alternatives to maximize output. How much money is spent on attempts to
actually ship food directly to the poor? Lots. How much money is spent
on direct efforts to implement the Singularity? We can both personally
attest, Ben, that there is not much.
Literally tens of thousands of times as much money is being spent on
fighting the battle than on winning the war. If Total Win R&D were an
entire 1% of the money spent on Shipping Yet Another Crate of Food, there
*still* wouldn't be enough money going to Total Win R&D. The *correct*,
optimal balance between Total Win R&D and more mundane efforts would
probably be around the same as the balance between R&D spending and
day-to-day operational spending at a major technology company.
Right now, Total Win is nowhere *near* 1%. Your argument would make sense
*only* if there were *so much money* being spent on the Singularity that
the Singularity had reached the point of diminishing returns, while there
was *so little money* being spent on direct benefits that relatively small
investments in shipping food directly could have a huge payoff. But this
is the exact opposite of the situation that actually obtains. So little
money is being spent on the Singularity that not only are we not at the
Point of Diminishing Returns, we are at the Point of Enormous Leverage.
Suggesting that money be diverted from the Singularity (or the Extropy
Institute) to CARE has to be literally the worst possible way to implement
philanthropy. It is not only eating your seed grain, it is deliberately
searching out and eating the most valuable seed grain on the entire
planet.
There is a place in the world for CARE, and a place in the world for ExI.
I am not suggesting that CARE be destroyed. Your suggestion that ExI fund
CARE, however, makes far less sense than suggesting the reverse.
> p.s.
> Bill Gates is spending his money on neither helping the poor NOR on urging
> along the Singularity.
What on *Earth* are you talking about?
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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