RE: greatest threats to survival (was: why believe the truth?)

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Wed Jun 18 2003 - 10:38:47 MDT

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    Eliezer wrote:
    > Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
    >>
    >> ### For all the decades of unmet expectations, AI relied on computing
    >> power of the order of an ant, and only recently, as Moravec writes,
    >> did they graduate to the computing power of a mouse. Since AI on
    >> ant-powered computers gave ant-powered results, and AI on
    >> mouse-powered computers gives mouse-powered capacities (such as
    >> target tracking, simple learning, simple motor control), we may
    >> expect that AI on human-level computers will give human-level
    >> results. Human-level computing power is going to be available to
    >> SingInst in about 15 years, so we can expect the recursive
    >> self-enhancement of the FAI to take off around that time.
    >>
    >> QED?
    >
    > No, unfortunately, as far as I can tell, we have *enough* computing
    > power available for AI now. Yes, right now. *More* computing power
    > will make it *easier*, again unfortunately so. At least with current
    > computing power it should still be fairly *hard* for the standard
    > flounder-around style of AI to get anywhere.

    ### Well, yes, this was meant as a conservative estimate for the consumption
    of sceptics, to get them hooked on the idea of near-term Singularity, so in
    the next step they can accept the prospect of a really immediate right-now
    Singularity, right after SingInst gets the new Dell (or IBM or whatever)
    workstations they hope to get funded (hint, hint).

    Rafal



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