From: Robin Hanson (hanson@dosh.hum.caltech.edu)
Date: Sun Sep 15 1996 - 21:02:58 MDT
Anders Sandberg writes:
>If strong nanotechnology is possible, then economy as we know it will
>be completely different (an information-based economy might work in
>moderate cases, but if rapidly self-augmenting SI becomes possible
>even that fails).
This seems too strong a claim to me. Nanotech would change the
relative values of differnet kinds of production costs, and we are
uncertain about the magnitude of various effects. But all of the
possibilities seem understanable with basic economic theory, and not
"completely different". I think this is even true with artificial
intelligence.
I think folks are too stuck on the notion that changes must be
incomprehensible - you don't know what you can or can't understand
until you try. And you haven't really tried until you've used the
best intellectual tools available.
Robin Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:35:45 MST