In late 2008, an extensive and long-awaited debate about the Technological Singularity occurred on Overcoming Bias, mainly between Robin Hanson and Eliezer Yudkowsky. It focused on the likelihood of hard AI takeoff (“FOOM”), the need for a theory of Friendliness, and the future of AGI, whole brain emulation, and recursive self-improvement in general. A stand-up debate on the same themes took place at Jane Street Capital in June 2011, and Hanson made a further post in 2014.
See Also
The best resource for most readers new to the debate will be MIRI’s 2013 The Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate eBook, available in PDF, EPUB, and MOBI formats. This includes
the original series of blog posts,
a transcript of the 2011 debate
Kaj Sotala’s summary and analysis of the debate, and
a 2013 technical report on AI takeoff dynamics (“intelligence explosion microeconomics”) written by Yudkowsky.
Prologue
Main sequence
Conclusion
Postscript
Jane Street debate
A stand-up debate between Hanson and Yudkowsky on the same themes took place on Wednesday June 30 2011 at Jane Street Capital.
Poor quality WMA audio97M (dead link)Poor quality MP3 audio97M (dead link)Partial transcript by Chris Hallquist
Summary and analysis
In Spring 2012 Luke Muehlhauser asked Kaj Sotala to write a summary and analysis of the debate; he made a draft of that analysis available in November 2012. The final version of the summary is included in the ebook.
Post-book material
Not included in MIRI’s 2013 book on the debate:
Robin Hanson’s 2014 blog post on the subject in response to the publication of “Superintelligence”, I Still Don’t Get Foom
Katja Grace’s 2014 hosted discussion on Less Wrong, Superintelligence 6: Intelligence explosion kinetics
Eliezer’s 2017 post, AlphaGo Zero and the Foom Debate and Robin Hanson’s reply, What Evidence Is AlphaGo Zero Re AGI Complexity?
From the old discussion page:
Talk:The Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate
What’s FOOM?
Could someone please make it explicit in the text of the page what FOOM stands for, since FOOM redirects here? I assume it’s an acronym, but while I tried skimming through some of the articles in the main sequence, all participants use the term like everyone knows what it is. More clarity regarding jargon would be helpful. Thanks! Markus Ramikin 10:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Foom is not an acronym, but short hand for a hard takeoff intelligence explosion. I have updated the redirect to point to intelligence explosion. - Nic Smith 18:25, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Oh. Thanks! Markus Ramikin 22:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)