Will P: A question, would you consider computers as part of the dominant optimisation processes on earth already?
Will, to the extent that you can draw a category around discrete optimisation processes, I’d say a qualified ‘yes’. Computers, insofar as they are built and used to approach human terminal values, are a part of the human optimisation process. Humanity is far more efficient in its processes than a hundred years back. The vast majority of this has something to do with silicon.
In response to your computers-on-the-moon (great counterfactual, by the way), I think I’d end up judging optimisation by its results. That said, I suppose how you measure efficiency depends on what that query is disguising. Intelligence/g? Reproductive speed? TIT-FOR-TAT-ness?
I read recently that the neanderthals, despite having the larger brain cavities, may well have gone under because our own ancestors simply bred faster. Who had the better optimisation process there?
The question of whether ‘computer-optimisation’ will ever be a separate process from ‘human-optimisation’ depends largely on your point of view. It seems as though a human-built computer should never spontaneously dream up its own terminal value. However, feel free to disagree with me when your DNA is being broken down to create molecular smiley faces.
Will P: A question, would you consider computers as part of the dominant optimisation processes on earth already?
Will, to the extent that you can draw a category around discrete optimisation processes, I’d say a qualified ‘yes’. Computers, insofar as they are built and used to approach human terminal values, are a part of the human optimisation process. Humanity is far more efficient in its processes than a hundred years back. The vast majority of this has something to do with silicon.
In response to your computers-on-the-moon (great counterfactual, by the way), I think I’d end up judging optimisation by its results. That said, I suppose how you measure efficiency depends on what that query is disguising. Intelligence/g? Reproductive speed? TIT-FOR-TAT-ness?
I read recently that the neanderthals, despite having the larger brain cavities, may well have gone under because our own ancestors simply bred faster. Who had the better optimisation process there?
The question of whether ‘computer-optimisation’ will ever be a separate process from ‘human-optimisation’ depends largely on your point of view. It seems as though a human-built computer should never spontaneously dream up its own terminal value. However, feel free to disagree with me when your DNA is being broken down to create molecular smiley faces.