It’s good to see that this does at least mention the problem with influencing the world over long time periods but it still misses the key human blind spot: Humans are not really capable of thinking of humanity over long time periods. Humans think 100 years or 1,000 years is an eternity when, for a potentially immortal entity, 1,000,000 years is almost indistinguishable from 100.
A good thought experiment is to imagine that aliens come down and give us a single pill that will make a single human super intelligent AND immortal. Suppose we set up a special training facility to train a group of children, from birth, to be the recipient of the pill. Would you ever feel certain that giving one of those children the pill was safe? I wouldn’t. I certainly think that you’d be foolish to give it to me.
Why is there no discussion about restricting the time frame that AGIs are allowed to consider?
It’s good to see that this does at least mention the problem with influencing the world over long time periods but it still misses the key human blind spot: Humans are not really capable of thinking of humanity over long time periods. Humans think 100 years or 1,000 years is an eternity when, for a potentially immortal entity, 1,000,000 years is almost indistinguishable from 100. A good thought experiment is to imagine that aliens come down and give us a single pill that will make a single human super intelligent AND immortal. Suppose we set up a special training facility to train a group of children, from birth, to be the recipient of the pill. Would you ever feel certain that giving one of those children the pill was safe? I wouldn’t. I certainly think that you’d be foolish to give it to me. Why is there no discussion about restricting the time frame that AGIs are allowed to consider?