Q: Evolution is a dumb algorithm, yet it produced halfway functional minds. How can it be that the problem isn’t easy for humans, who are much smarter than evolution?
A: Evolution’s output is not just one functional mind. Evolution put out billions of different minds, an extreme minority of them being functional. If we had a billion years of time and had a trillion chances to get it right, the problem would be easy. Since we only have around 30 years and exactly 1 chance, the problem is hard.
Evolution also had 1 chance, in the sense that the first intelligent species created would take over the world and reform it very quickly, leaving no time for evolution to try any other mind-design. I’m pretty sure there will be no other intelligent species that evolves by pure natural selection after humanity—unless it’s part of an experiment run by humans. Evolution had a lot of chances to try to create a functional intelligence, but as for the friendliness problem, it had only one chance. The reason being, a faulty intelligence will die out soon enough, and give evolution time to design a better one, but a working paperclip maximizer is quite capable of surviving and reproducing and eliminating any other attempts at intelligence.
Essentially:
Q: Evolution is a dumb algorithm, yet it produced halfway functional minds. How can it be that the problem isn’t easy for humans, who are much smarter than evolution?
A: Evolution’s output is not just one functional mind. Evolution put out billions of different minds, an extreme minority of them being functional. If we had a billion years of time and had a trillion chances to get it right, the problem would be easy. Since we only have around 30 years and exactly 1 chance, the problem is hard.
Evolution also had 1 chance, in the sense that the first intelligent species created would take over the world and reform it very quickly, leaving no time for evolution to try any other mind-design. I’m pretty sure there will be no other intelligent species that evolves by pure natural selection after humanity—unless it’s part of an experiment run by humans. Evolution had a lot of chances to try to create a functional intelligence, but as for the friendliness problem, it had only one chance. The reason being, a faulty intelligence will die out soon enough, and give evolution time to design a better one, but a working paperclip maximizer is quite capable of surviving and reproducing and eliminating any other attempts at intelligence.