Re: ESSAY: How to deter a rogue AI by using your first-mover advantage

From: Norman Noman (overturnedchair@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Aug 27 2007 - 07:35:07 MDT


> The religious fanatics are probably wrong, but unfortunately they're
> not all stupid. It's not even unthinkable that they may come to be the
> dominant force post-singularity.

If the post-singularity world contains people who are as stupid as they are
today and who have the power to simulate universes, then something has gone
disastrously wrong.

I'd like to say that CEV would both make people smart enough to realize
religion is a load of hooey, and prevent people from threatening each other
with simulations, but frankly I don't know what CEV does, it seems to be
more of a mysterious treasure map than an actual target.

The probability that some
> member of the movement will succeed at some point in the future of the
> universe will then determine the probability that you are now in the
> simulation.

> If the movement further stipulates that the simulation
> will be recursive - simulations within simulations - you could argue
> that you are almost certainly in one of these simulations.

Except that, under the hypothesis where everybody and his brother is allowed
to simulate the universe, there would be billions of recursive simulations
and you might be in any one of them. The difficulty in calculating the
average effect is partially due to complexity, but also due to the basic
implausibility of this hypothetical situation.

In contrast, rolf's plan is quite plausible, because it's something that
benefits everyone. Not just humanity and the Friendly AI, but the Rogue AI
too. If everyone cooperates, then whether mistakes are made or not, humanity
will be saved and C will be calculated.

The simulation argument doesn't result in a zero motivation vector because
this is not a zero sum game.

> And the thing is, it's not going to work either way. If they reveal the
> > plan, and say SMOKE OR DIE! it's only going to make everyone hate them
> even
> > more. Actually, it's only going to make everyone laugh at them and think
> > they're nuts, but assuming they were taken seriously for some reason...
>
> The religious people would convince the faithful that they were doing
> God's work, as explained above. But even if it's tobacco companies,
> the fact that it's obviously an evil threat doesn't make it any less
> likely to be true. And if it actually got to the point where
> legislation was passed to make this sort of thing illegal, that would
> be the ultimate proof that people were taking it seriously.

Are you playing the devil's advocate or do you really think it's even
remotely likely that big tobacco would invest in a karmic simulation of the
universe in order to get people to smoke?

> If I am an RAI, the evidence that I may be in a simulation is as follows:
> >
> > "The people who created me were trying to create a FAI. With more luck,
> they
> > would have succeeded. The FAI they created would run karmic simulations
> of
> > likely RAIs that could have been created instead.
> >
> > Ergo, the probability I am one of them is XY/(1-X)Z, where X is the
> > likelihood they'd create a friendly AI rather than a rouge one, Y is the
> > likelihood a friendly AI would simulate me specifically, and Z is the
> > likelihood I would be created as a result of real human error."
>
> These are difficult things to reason about. What about the possibility
> that you or the RAI might be in a recursive simulation?

If everyone simulates each other, their influence is proportional to their
likelihood of existing in the first place. Since FAI is the target, it's
probably the most likely to exist.

Everyone with enough influence to do so manipulates everyone else into
cooperating with them, and the resulting actions of all the AIs, even the
FAI, cohere to the extent of satisfying all the most likely goals to the
extent that they are mutually satisfiable, including probably a zillion
different definitions of friendliness, calculating C, and whatever else is
likely to crop up by mistake.

I don't see how recursive simulations, if the primary simulator bothers to
actually run them at all, would make a difference. They would just be more
reasons to do the same things already being done.



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