Spike Jones wrote:
>
> > Eliezer wrote:
> > >
> > > Maybe I'm being too harsh here. I guess a lot of these ideas look a lot
> > > less silly if you're planning for a 50-year or, ha ha, 100-year outlook.
> > > But try pretending, as a mental exercise, that everything you do with your
> > > life has to be completely finished by 2008 to do any good, and see what
> > > that does to your perspective.
>
> Perhaps I should have said we need to make up names for the
> various schools of thought on the singularity with respect to the
> expected time frames. I know we already have terminology such
> as hard take-off, gradual, The Spike, etc. In fact I think there is
> a website that has all of that. {Where?} Is there a term for those
> who make no plans more than 8 or 10 years hence? Those like
> myself who expect about 50 more years before a hard takeoff
> singularity? spike
<sound of forehead dropping to desk with dull thump>
Okay, I admitted I expected comments like this from a few people, but not
from Spike!
Everyone repeat after me: "Knowing how to plan for an 8-year cutoff time
does not mean that I am restricted to planning for an 8-year cutoff time.
Knowing how to plan for an 8-year cutoff time does not mean that I am
restricted to planning for an 8-year cutoff time. Knowing how to plan for
an 8-year cutoff time does not mean that I am restricted to planning for
an 8-year cutoff time..."
Of course, planning for beyond 2030 is IMHO pretty silly, unless it's a
nuclear war or Baylor Jihad scenario. But I actually do try to visualize
nuclear war scenarios... I wouldn't be wistfully wishing I could move to
Australia otherwise. Likewise for Baylor Jihad scenarios and Japan,
although in most Baylor Jihad scenarios you get enough warning to move
first.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:13 MDT