From: Cliff Stabbert (cstabbert@the-beach.net)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 13:01:19 MDT
Hi, you wrote:
LW> I read a while ago posts on the "search for money" to fund SIAI, but
LW> never was there any questioning as to why money (which is a man made
LW> technology) is scarce (not just for funding deep science projects), and
LW> why money appears to flow only into certain type of projects, and why it
LW> is necessary for someone (like Eliezer) to _prove_ that the money is
LW> "well invested" ... it even remains ambigous what a "good investment"
LW> means in monetary terms. A lot of assumptions that do not question the
LW> "technology money" at all, which becomes, once again, a problem similar
LW> to what Bill Hibbard already wrote about finding the base values to the
LW> values you wish to work with. If you wish to work with "funding" then
LW> you must necessarily work with money, but if money's "inner workings"
LW> are implicit or ambigous in our understanding, then we can forever chase
LW> after it without really knowing what "it" is nor why it is not available
LW> for "good" projects. We may be intelligent, but our intelligence doesn't
LW> seem to be willing to create an awareness and hopefully understanding of
LW> one of the most widely used man-made contraptions (money).
It doesn't take deep analysis, philosophical speculation, or
post-modern deconstruction to see what is plain: that in this world,
at this time, equipment and personnel for AI programming takes money,
mullah, cash.
Yes, as Douglas Adams points out, it's just little colored bits of
paper, it's all just symbols, etc. But these symbols are real to the
extent that other people behave as if they are real -- and in this
universe, on this planet, at this time, most other people do behave
that way.
So your longwinded paragraph above might be of interest to those
inclined to sit back and wonder about the meaning of it all, but
SIAI's mission is to achieve things, not contemplate.
-- Cliff
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