To Tony Cole and Steve : Steve – Yes, of course, immortality in a robotic body would be preferable, assuming that option was available. I for myself, should I be convinced my consciousness survives, believe the life in a box has the potential to be more diverse and interesting than in a robotic body. But in truth, if one is possible, both probably are and will be accessible. To Steve Richfield : I have yet to see a serious explanation as to why there is a possibility that an AGI would NOT be an existential threat to us. How about this one : Anything you don't fully understand have the possibility to surprise you and make you revisit your beliefs ? Here is the thing, you do know of course that putting the burden of proof of non-existence on someone that doubt it existence is fallacious don't you ? Directly from Wikipedia, Philosophic burden of proof page (unless of course you do not consider a "serious explanation why" as a burden of proof) : An argument from ignorance occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proved true.[2][3] This has the effect of shifting the burden of proof to the person criticizing the proposition, but is not valid reasoning.[4] Personnaly, I don't mind explaining my reasoning to allow better comprehension. My very short history on this mailing list already has multiple instances of this. We are at still far from a comprehensive understanding and don't know enough to make an educated guess on such topics. In such circumstances, I have a great difficulty with people implying things as "True" when they are obviously opionions. Most often those people act as bully. I am starting to think my classic reaction to contest their view might be a personality flaw. I will reflect on that. Back to the topic of potential risks, we of course need to talk about them. Even the slight possibility of existential risk mandate efforts in that direction. Yet to be conclusive at this point seems a tad premature, wouldn't you agree ? Because of this, existential risk has to be consider a possibility by anyone honnest. Is it a high one or an unlikely one ? Everyone has their opinion. Still, it is not obvious to me that the existential risk is likely and I believe way smarter people than me hold both positions firmly. To me, it says that it is likely we are in inconclusive territory. I suppose the same can be said about both our beliefs (mine that AGI would see day before minduploading and yours of the contrary). What can I say, I am imperfect. So for doing the exact thing I was criticizing, I appologize. I will say that I believe most experts in the field thinks AGI will come first. But again, how many times did humanity as a majority was wrong. There is a BIG difference between simply pointing out that there is no evidence of a God, and coming up with a PROOF that AFFIRMATIVELY DISCONNECTS all present religious writings for any potential benevolent God. My bad. I accept the distinction. Based on what I've read, your reasoning has still not convincing to me. Quite anthropomorphic actually. That if indeed God was in possession of such knowledge as we have today he would have shared it 2000 years ago with humanity. To understand omnipotence motivations would mean to be omnipotent as well. I do not believe in God. I am an Atheist. I see more harm than good in religions. Yet I didn't find your reasoning convincing. I can even use your way and think of a very simple, anthropomorphic reason as to why he would have acted that way. Because he wanted humanity to discover those things by itself. I am not saying it is the case. Just that with this line of reasoning you are disproving nothing. You are typing before you are thinking. I did NOT claim to disprove the existence of God, only prove that the various religious writings are NOT the work of such a God. Again my bad. My pun still applies to the not-disproved intervention of God on scriptures for reasons previously explained further. You need to pay more attention to what people are saying, Google past discussions, etc., to avoid sounding so stupid If you are serious about this - enough to not go on sounding like an idiot, I suggest Googling past discussions here I personnaly rather see you think of me as stupid than Google your past conversations. Also if you feel I didn't have the right to contest what you did write based on what else you wrote that I should have read, and that for that you are intitled in using "sounding like an idiot" or "sounding so stupid", I believe it shows more about you than it highlights things about me. If you feel the need to continu this conversation further, I'd rather you do it in PM. I don't mind losing an argument publicly, but I do not want to drag this thing ad nauseum for the other users and I don't feel anything interesting for them will come out of it.
Simon Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 02:48:11 -0700 Subject: Re: [agi] AGI and Cosmism From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Simon, On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:53 AM, simon <[email protected]> wrote: Steve Richfield : No, the most likely result would be legislation AGAINST a potential world-ending technology. Just like bathroom atomic experimentation is now illegal, AGI research would become illegal. The economics incentives of building an AGI is so powerful that I wouldn't be as confident as you in your conclusion. The military certainly would NOT be stopped by anything being so dangerous that it could destroy us all, so you point is valid. However, I certainly CAN see them making competition from us illegal and seizing anything we might have relating to AGI development. I will agree that the more people will be aware of the potential dangers (and rewards) of AGI, the more disagreement there will be (like aborters and prolife). It becomes about saving the human race from the AGI that some fools on this forum seek to build. There are so much of unresolved questions that the only thing certain is that there is a possibility of AGI to be a threat (and a possibility for it to be an existential one). I have yet to see a serious explanation as to why there is a possibility that an AGI would NOT be an existential threat to us. So for a problem not yet completely understood you : 1- Treat people that are trying to develop AGI of fools 2- Offer to focus your energy in a field where the implications are even more obscure (mind uploads) and that is arguably harder to achieve than the one you are racing against. One path (mind upload/download) has VERY visible challenges showing that this is a difficult path, while the other path (AGI) no one seems to have a clue as to how to proceed, so its difficulty is completely unknown, though there seem to be some good arguments that AGI is probably centuries away. I have voted with my own feet and just patented a new type of microscope that appears capable of "reading out" our brain structure and component values. Past this there may be other roadblocks, but we won't know until we get there. Others (like Ben) have voted with their own feet and hit roadblocks, that no one sees any apparent way around. One thing is sure - some trick (like keying textual analysis on least-frequently-used (LFU) words) is an absolute necessity to usefully process real-world text at practical speeds, yet so far no one (except possibly Homeland Security in secret projects) is doing this. Given the reluctance to take steps that appear absolutely necessary to progress, I see NO risk that anyone here is going to develop an AGI. Since you like imperative and imposing your opinion as the Truth (which I generally don't like as I my short history on this mailing list can attest) : What you have missed is that through THOUSANDS of interactions here and elsewhere I have carefully wrung out my arguments. Then, you drop in here and dismiss them without examining them. Your loss. If you are serious about this - enough to not go on sounding like an idiot, I suggest Googling past discussions here. In short, given the presence of hazards like Ben and Hugo, downloading becomes MUCH more than "just" about living forever or making LOTS of money. It becomes about saving the human race from the AGI that some fools on this forum seek to build. No, that is your limited understanding of the un-understood speaking. but apparently I am the first to work on proving them FALSE Ever heard of Christopher Hitchens ? He said that a person "could be an atheist and wish that belief in god were correct," but that "an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion." There is a BIG difference between simply pointing out that there is no evidence of a God, and coming up with a PROOF that AFFIRMATIVELY DISCONNECTS all present religious writings for any potential benevolent God. Then, ask yourself why an omnipotent benevolent God would choose to omit such material if he knew it. Two of these things clearly should have come from Jesus as better ways of addressing conflict, but for some inexplicable reason (if you think there was a God involved in this) Jesus never said them Just for fun, take the opposite position. What if there was a God, you think the argument that you know better than him what he should have done disproved his existence ? You are typing before you are thinking. I did NOT claim to disprove the existence of God, only prove that the various religious writings are NOT the work of such a God. Please... You need to pay more attention to what people are saying, Google past discussions, etc., to avoid sounding so stupid. Just because you disagree with something someone is saying doesn't mean that they haven't already heard your arguments from others and drilled down to find their flaws. For example, there have been at least hundreds, maybe thousands of postings here quoting just about everyone in the field regarding how an AGI might be rendered safe, only to discover in conversation that each proposal is fatally flawed. One fellow here even obtained a patent on his proposal - which of course is worthless because it is unworkable. Now, even Ben, the strongest supporter of AGI research you will ever find, admits that there is NO even moderately safe path to an AGI, though he remains hopeful that one will eventually be found. Unless/until that path is found, AGI development may effectively be doomsday machine development. So far, the only AGI proposal I have heard that seems to have a chance of being safe is downloading (consciousness to a robotic body that has a super-human computer on which to "run" the consciousness). While there is no guarantee of this being safe, at least it seems to lack any benefit from such an AGI seeking to destroy world-inhabiting vermin like us. This approach - of removing the "reward" for exterminating the human race - might yet survive further analysis. This HAS been discussed on this forum before you arrived - and is NOT my idea. Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. Proceed at your own risk. Steve ================== Simon Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2015 10:23:29 -0700 Subject: Re: [agi] AGI and Cosmism From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Telmo, On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 6:23 AM, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> wrote: On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 8:58 PM, Steve Richfield <[email protected]> wrote: Logan, On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 8:50 AM, Logan Streondj <[email protected]> wrote: Cosmism seems to be the religion espoused by top tier AGI researchers. Namely Ben Goertzel and Hugo De Garis, though some others have also written books about Cosmism recently. Create-your-own God. Myself, I prefer our present godless world. Heaven would be SUCH a drag. I've always felt my life path was to be a spiritual leader, Spiritual has to do with what can NOT be presently proven false. How do you categorize things that are proved to be unprovable (e.g. by Gödel's incompleteness, a formal system cannot prove its own consistency, and I would say this includes the human mind), or uncomputable (e.g. the halting problem)? You missed my point. While there are MANY things that can NOT be proven to be TRUE, there are also MANY things that CAN be proven to be FALSE. Most importantly, that present religious writings of ALL current religions are NOT the product of an omnipotent benevolent God. My proof ONLY covers this particular point and does NOT address whether any religious writings are the product on a demonic God, Aliens, creative people, etc. On a side note; in 1994 I was sold into indentured servitude in Saudi Arabia. To escape I had to LEARN the Quran - well enough to engage in discussions/arguments with experts regarding details therein. I needed a good central presumption so I could scan for anything that violated that presumption, rather than trying to learn the entire book from scratch in just a few days. The presumption that worked for me was that it was written by a VERY creative social engineer who was addressing problems of 1400 years ago, like people eating their children when they ran out of food, rather than our present-day problems. Note here that it is especially difficult to prove something TRUE when it is in fact FALSE. Religions have been stating that their propositions are unproveable for millennia as a device for attracting devotees - but apparently I am the first to work on proving them FALSE. The proofs are pretty simple - just look for present-day knowledge that is obviously MORE important than anything in present religions, AND that could still be taught to a primitive person of 2,000 years ago. There are several such things. Then, ask yourself why an omnipotent benevolent God would choose to omit such material if he knew it. Two of these things clearly should have come from Jesus as better ways of addressing conflict, but for some inexplicable reason (if you think there was a God involved in this) Jesus never said them. One of them actually WAS said by Mohammad - who then failed to realize the value of what he had as a means of debunking the Bible, which points the finger of doubt in BOTH directions. So, Gödel was right that religions are unproveable, but NOT for the reasons he imagined. They are unprovably true BECAUSE they are provably FALSE. Steve ================ Now that there are solid proofs that present religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are false, some people look to AGI. Of course once constructed, AGI will no longer be a religion - it will be technology. and I'm rather interested in the PR of AGI. What are the bounds on what you call AGI? Does this include uploading? Downloading? Enhancement of individuals (like you and me) to full AGI capability? Etc? Unless you have thought out these questions VERY carefully - MUCH more carefully than the people you now cite, PR will bring disaster to AGI as others with different opinions react in unfortunate ways. Having a strong group of people that share the vision of beneficial AGI future, is conducive to good legislation and funding. No, the most likely result would be legislation AGAINST a potential world-ending technology. Just like bathroom atomic experimentation is now illegal, AGI research would become illegal. However, if you were to "succeed" in attracting "good" legislation and funding, you would then be up against the situation that SO many have written about - that there are countless ways that an AGI could destroy us all, and NO viable approach to protect us from that - leading to our eventual doom no matter WHAT we did to delay/avoid that end. Turing Church and some Transhumanist associations seem to be what is available. What is REALLY needed is a leader pulling people to a more tractable path. There is WAY too much that is presently unknown about how we work to ever program a computer to emulate it, or even understand it, even with limitless intelligence. The one shining light I see is to concentrate on technologies leading to downloading - which is why I have put so much effort into a super-microscope capable of diagramming brains. My hope is that downloading outruns the current misdirected wave of people trying to program computers to think, so PEOPLE remain in charge, rather than a new specie of computer that has NO interest beyond simple curiosity in our preservation. In short, given the presence of hazards like Ben and Hugo, downloading becomes MUCH more than "just" about living forever or making LOTS of money. It becomes about saving the human race from the AGI that some fools on this forum seek to build. 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