Bill, A long time ago in places far away I delivered speeches at colleges regarding the practical impossibility of making a good missile defense system (the then so called Star Wars Defense Initiative SDI). The arguments centered around the ease with which various proposed methods could be defeated using home-garage level methods, e.g. putting flat conductive sides on warheads to avoid RADAR. Still, the U.S. government pumped millions into this.
SDI threw the Soviets into a tizzy and they spent billions on Star Wars technology - until it bankrupted their economy. The country where bread would ALWAYS be available suddenly had no bread to hand out, and within weeks the USSR was GONE. Of course the REAL goal of SDI had always been to bankrupt the Soviets. My lectures only worked to impair that effort. I spoke the truth - but in the process I impaired larger better things. Here and now we are discussing AI/AGI and in some ways things seem much the same as with Star Wars. People are arguing the various sides of things with MUCH greater implications. What those implications are I can hardly guess. I certainly never saw the fall of the Soviet Union coming. Suppose for a moment we were to announce small AI-based desert spiders that hunt people down and kill them, and consume their bodies as fuel, and that we are about to start dropping these on ISIS or whatever follows them in the future. It is hard to rise from the dead when you have been turned into vapor. Note here that victories could be achieved without a single spider being dropped - except that some people (like me) pointing out the impossibility of this would muck up the works. So, I have adjusted my zeal to pointing out impossibilities but NOT campaigning for or against particular paths, at least not until I am pretty sure that not only am I right, but also that I am not screwing up something MUCH bigger. AGI is NOT going be become a reality anytime soon, e.g. probably not within my lifetime. I can see that, but I am NOT about to campaign for that. Similarly, I see GOOD political reasons to keep research secret, e.g. so the above mentioned spiders could be announced. Often very simplistic methods can create seemingly intelligent military hardware, e.g. bounding mines, that jump out of the ground and destroy tanks. That and a few rumors about spiders and they might thin the ranks of ISIS on short order. Opening up AI research would work to defeat such bluffs. Steve =============== On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 7:32 AM, Bill Hibbard <[email protected]> wrote: > The New York Times, Washington Post and Huffington > Post didn't want this, minus its last paragraph, as > an op-ed: > > https://sites.google.com/site/whibbard/g/transparency > > Perhaps people on this mailing list will find it > interesting. > > > ------------------------------------------- > AGI > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/10443978-6f4c28ac > Modify Your Subscription: > https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > -- Full employment can be had with the stoke of a pen. Simply institute a six hour workday. That will easily create enough new jobs to bring back full employment. ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
