I’ll accept time-sensitive stuff as a valid counterargument to my claim, as well as e.g. things moving beyond the observable universe.
But I don’t see how the existence of the moons of Neptune works as a counterargument. The whole point is that you do something laborious to gain/accumulate/generate new knowledge (like send a space probe). And then to verify/confirm said knowledge, you don’t have to send a new space probe because you can use a gazillion other cheaper methods to confirm the knowledge instead (like by pointing telescopes at the moons, or by using your improved knowledge of physical law to predict their positions, etc. etc.).
If the claim is just “producing the exact same kind of evidence (space probe pictures) can require the same cost”, then I don’t exactly disagree, I just don’t see how that’s at all relevant. The AI context here is that we have a superhuman mind that can generate knowledge we can’t (the space probe or its pictures), and the question is whether it can convert that knowledge into a form we’d have a much easier time understanding. In that situation, why would it matter that we can’t build a second space probe?
Because then we can’t trust that that’s what the moons of Neptune really look like. The information has come from a source with goals and motivations and long-term plans, and the ability to lie. If a space probe tells us that the largest moon of Neptune has black geysers and terrain shaped like cantaloupe skin, we can trust it because it’s subhuman and incapable of fooling us. With an AI we have to think “what if it’s wrong? What if it has an ulterior motive?”
It occurs to me that both of my examples are similar, in that the moon of Neptune are remote in space, while historical facts are remote in time. We can imagine facts that are both. A few years ago, the comet Omuamua passed through the solar system on an interstellar journey. We took lots of observations of its weird properties as it passed the Sun, and then it vanished back into the interstellar darkness. The longer we wait, the harder it would be to send a space probe.
We have pictures of the moons of Neptune. Verifying them would require sending another space probe, and be no easier than the first one.
Lots of historical facts were easy to determine at the time they were written down, and now quite impossible to check.
I’ll accept time-sensitive stuff as a valid counterargument to my claim, as well as e.g. things moving beyond the observable universe.
But I don’t see how the existence of the moons of Neptune works as a counterargument. The whole point is that you do something laborious to gain/accumulate/generate new knowledge (like send a space probe). And then to verify/confirm said knowledge, you don’t have to send a new space probe because you can use a gazillion other cheaper methods to confirm the knowledge instead (like by pointing telescopes at the moons, or by using your improved knowledge of physical law to predict their positions, etc. etc.).
If the claim is just “producing the exact same kind of evidence (space probe pictures) can require the same cost”, then I don’t exactly disagree, I just don’t see how that’s at all relevant. The AI context here is that we have a superhuman mind that can generate knowledge we can’t (the space probe or its pictures), and the question is whether it can convert that knowledge into a form we’d have a much easier time understanding. In that situation, why would it matter that we can’t build a second space probe?
Because then we can’t trust that that’s what the moons of Neptune really look like. The information has come from a source with goals and motivations and long-term plans, and the ability to lie. If a space probe tells us that the largest moon of Neptune has black geysers and terrain shaped like cantaloupe skin, we can trust it because it’s subhuman and incapable of fooling us. With an AI we have to think “what if it’s wrong? What if it has an ulterior motive?”
It occurs to me that both of my examples are similar, in that the moon of Neptune are remote in space, while historical facts are remote in time. We can imagine facts that are both. A few years ago, the comet Omuamua passed through the solar system on an interstellar journey. We took lots of observations of its weird properties as it passed the Sun, and then it vanished back into the interstellar darkness. The longer we wait, the harder it would be to send a space probe.