I’m not sure where this sequence of posts is going, but I feel I should use the opportunity to advertise my own status as somewhere way above average and yet extremely badly positioned to use my abilities. I consider that what I should be working on is something like the Singularity Institute’s agenda, but with the understanding that today’s scientific ontology is radically incomplete on at least two fronts, and that fundamental new ontological ideas are therefore required. Eliezer has repeatedly made the point that getting AGI and FAI right is far more difficult and far more important than is appreciated by most people attracted to the subject. Something similar may be said regarding people’s ideas about ontology, the basic nature of reality. There is a terrible complacency among people who have assimilated the ontological perspectives of mathematical physics and computer science, and the people who do object to the adequacy of naturalism are generally pressing in a retrograde direction.
Experience suggests that it’s extremely unlikely that this message will improve anything, and so I’ll just have to save myself, but it is all nonetheless true.
I’m not sure where this sequence of posts is going, but I feel I should use the opportunity to advertise my own status as somewhere way above average and yet extremely badly positioned to use my abilities. I consider that what I should be working on is something like the Singularity Institute’s agenda, but with the understanding that today’s scientific ontology is radically incomplete on at least two fronts, and that fundamental new ontological ideas are therefore required. Eliezer has repeatedly made the point that getting AGI and FAI right is far more difficult and far more important than is appreciated by most people attracted to the subject. Something similar may be said regarding people’s ideas about ontology, the basic nature of reality. There is a terrible complacency among people who have assimilated the ontological perspectives of mathematical physics and computer science, and the people who do object to the adequacy of naturalism are generally pressing in a retrograde direction.
Experience suggests that it’s extremely unlikely that this message will improve anything, and so I’ll just have to save myself, but it is all nonetheless true.