It would seem that the big development in our lifetimes has been the advent of the digital computer, the Turing Machine. Assuming all humans come into the world with no basic knowledge other than hard-wired reflexes, we must all gain our knowledge from those who have have preceded us, along with our own reflections about that knowledge and reflections on our environmental observations. The entire Library of Congress is available digitally. Using the concepts of trend analysis and Bayesian Probabilities (and others I don’t know about), couldn’t a properly programed computer available right now analyze all human knowledge to this point, spotting trends, successful patterns, outcomes that improve the human condition, etc? Couldn’t it then use that knowledge to predict the future trends that would be beneficial? Isn’t that what Eliezer and others are trying to do, albeit in a much more awkward way? I think the computer would discover the importance of Bayesian Probability, if it is important, forthwith. If it is not recursively self-improving, it could at least approach the ideas that Eliezer and others are trying to describe for FAI in a much faster and more efficient way. N’est pas?
It would seem that the big development in our lifetimes has been the advent of the digital computer, the Turing Machine. Assuming all humans come into the world with no basic knowledge other than hard-wired reflexes, we must all gain our knowledge from those who have have preceded us, along with our own reflections about that knowledge and reflections on our environmental observations. The entire Library of Congress is available digitally. Using the concepts of trend analysis and Bayesian Probabilities (and others I don’t know about), couldn’t a properly programed computer available right now analyze all human knowledge to this point, spotting trends, successful patterns, outcomes that improve the human condition, etc? Couldn’t it then use that knowledge to predict the future trends that would be beneficial? Isn’t that what Eliezer and others are trying to do, albeit in a much more awkward way? I think the computer would discover the importance of Bayesian Probability, if it is important, forthwith. If it is not recursively self-improving, it could at least approach the ideas that Eliezer and others are trying to describe for FAI in a much faster and more efficient way. N’est pas?