From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Apr 30 2001 - 14:54:42 MDT
Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> It might also help if
> some of us have a story for the interim between now and the creation of
> a friendly SI. If that story is "suffer it to be so for a little while
> longer" then so be it. But I think it is important to know what the
> story is and why. It is important both for mass consumption and for the
> peace of mind and vision of those doing the work.
The story is "See my fellow philanthropists over at CARE." Specialization
is the hallmark of civilization. SIAI handles the long-term problem of a
hostile universe, Monsanto handles the mid-term problem of famine, and
CARE handles the short-term problem of food packages. Everyone's got
their place in the world of philanthropy. SIAI might branch out into
mid-term or short-term problems if AI has a particularly useful interim
application - if there is some mid-term or short-term problem that *only*
SIAI can handle, as a spinoff of our long-term efforts. Branching for the
sake of branching is impractical, even as a PR stunt.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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