Luke, I’m not sure this post was worth your time to write. Most of us here probably do not have a strong interest in studying history for its own sake, and this scholarship about who first came up with various Singularity-related ideas and arguments doesn’t seem to help very much in trying to figure out what we should do now to have the best chance of a positive Singularity. Perhaps I’m missing the point, in which case please fill me in...
Note that I’m making heavy use of my various research and editing assistants, so most of the time spent on these last two posts wasn’t my time. Also:
Showing the history can give people a more accurate picture of how these ideas developed and how many people were involved, which can reduce unwarranted hero worship, counteract the tendency to revere the bearer of good info, and help us make more accurate predictions about, for example, how often people independently come to conclusions about AI risk or intelligence explosion or whatever.
There was always a remote chance I would encounter a good idea in the literature that I had not encountered elsewhere. (This did not turn out to be the case, however.)
I’m guessing this post is more of a side effect of getting acquainted with related publications, but it could serve to signal to the casual reader the existence of such publications going back many decades.
Luke, I’m not sure this post was worth your time to write. Most of us here probably do not have a strong interest in studying history for its own sake, and this scholarship about who first came up with various Singularity-related ideas and arguments doesn’t seem to help very much in trying to figure out what we should do now to have the best chance of a positive Singularity. Perhaps I’m missing the point, in which case please fill me in...
Note that I’m making heavy use of my various research and editing assistants, so most of the time spent on these last two posts wasn’t my time. Also:
Showing the history can give people a more accurate picture of how these ideas developed and how many people were involved, which can reduce unwarranted hero worship, counteract the tendency to revere the bearer of good info, and help us make more accurate predictions about, for example, how often people independently come to conclusions about AI risk or intelligence explosion or whatever.
There was always a remote chance I would encounter a good idea in the literature that I had not encountered elsewhere. (This did not turn out to be the case, however.)
I’m guessing this post is more of a side effect of getting acquainted with related publications, but it could serve to signal to the casual reader the existence of such publications going back many decades.