"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
>
> Zero Powers wrote:
> >
> > "Your dollars accomplish around a hundred times as much"??? Really?
> [snip]
> > Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking Exi or agreeing with Ian. But I think
> > your comments might be just as much an overstatement as his post was.
>
> Hey, get with the Singularity. Billions of lives are at stake here. If the
> ExI has a total pre-Singularity lifetime budget of, say, $1M (sadly, probably
> a huge overestimate) and it contributes a hundredth of one percent to the
> "win" - assuming we win - then that's the equivalent of, say, six lives for
> ten dollars. Alternatively, if the existence of ExI means the Singularity
> happens four days sooner, then that's also the equivalent of six lives for ten
> dollars. Can the Red Cross match that? I really don't think so. I think
> they'd be hard put to save another six lives with another thousand dollars.
>
>
I hope you are tongue in cheek. Billions of lifes are at stake in the
world in any case. It is not at all clear that getting to the
Singularity will be a net good thing that will aid rather than
destroying billions of lives. The work has to be much broader imho than
simply racing toward Singularity.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:18 MDT