Before I state my criticism of your mission, let me say that I respect what you are doing, I think it's incredibly interesting, and I think it adds spice to the world that an organization like the Singularity Institute exists. I think the world is a better place for it, and I respect you very much for spending your time exploring these issues.
That being said, I think the way you state your mission appears a little immature to me and many other people, and I think that very seriously detracts from your credibility. This is very important, because with more credibility you could accomplish many more things that make the world a better place. One of the most important things about scientific research is having a concrete, well defined way to attack a problem you're setting out to solve. People are working on quantum mechanics because there are lots of concrete things they can do and test, and people aren't working on antigravity because they don't know where to begin. Your research is from the "antigravity" category of problems, i.e. problems where we don't really have an attack.
This doesn't mean working on these problems isn't useful, or that you should stop, or that you should spend your time doing something else. It does mean that your research is highly philosophical - it is very interesting intellectually, it has potential to attract great young minds to work on interesting things, and it will likely produce results that will get people thinking in new directions. This is always a good thing. But it also means that you are extremely unlikely to find practical solutions to any of these problems, and it seems that everyone is recognizing this other than you. When you present yourself as an organization that is working on practical problems, instead of intellectually interesting philosophical problems, it becomes very difficult for many intelligent people to take you seriously, and I think it significantly detracts from your goal.
Once again, I think what you're doing is great, I wish more people were doing it, and I sincerely wish you luck and success. I am merely trying to show you how many intelligent people that would otherwise be interested in what you're doing view your organization. Please treat this comment as a constructive argument for changing your marketing. At the very least, think seriously about slightly adjusting the wording of your mission statement. It might get more of the right people interested, which will likely accelerate your work, and make all of us better off for it.
I've been working on getting our simulation terminated while attracting a transcedent to upload everybody (giving us a bridge to outside the soon-to-be-terminated simulation).
Also, I'm waiting for SLAC to burn through their barrier and burrow through Palo Alto.
Industrial food production is quite fragile, and the world basically has yet to experience that production in any sort of "failure mode," e.g. global blight due to excessive monocultures.
The probability of such a global failure occurring within the next 100 years strikes me as near 1.0, and thus possibly more pressing than any of the events listed above.
Importance-wise, delays in the singularity are trivial compared to a risk of it not happening at all.
So suppose we are worried that a die-off in industrial nations will actually make it impossible. Isn't this risk (that there is a major catastrophic disaster for industrialized nations and this disaster prevents a singularity from ever taking place) much smaller than the risk that the singularity goes badly when it happens? If so, then this supports the spirit of my original comment: worrying about the singularity going well is more pressing than worrying about major shocks to civilization which do not completely wipe out humanity.
The badness of a delayed singularity is insignificant to the badness of it never happening. So let's consider the latter.
Isn't the risk that a large industrial collapse happens and it prevents a singularity from ever taking place much smaller than the risk that the singularity goes badly? If so, then this agrees with the spirit of my comment: worrying about the singularity going well is much more pressing than worrying about catastrophes that do not immediately wipe out humanity.
Comments
"There are any number of threats to our species far more urgent and reality-based than xenocide by a weakly godlike post-singularity AI."
We work on preventing those too. Some of the risks we work to prevent:
- Deliberate misuse of nanotechnology
- Nuclear holocaust
- We’re living in a simulation and it gets shut down
- Genetically engineered biological agent
- Accidental misuse of nanotechnology (“gray goo”)
- Physics disasters
- Misguided world government or another static social equilibrium stops technological progress
- “Dysgenic” pressures
- Take-over by a transcending upload
- Repressive totalitarian global regime
- Our potential or even our core values are eroded by evolutionary development
For more information, see http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html.
Before I state my criticism of your mission, let me say that I respect what you are doing, I think it's incredibly interesting, and I think it adds spice to the world that an organization like the Singularity Institute exists. I think the world is a better place for it, and I respect you very much for spending your time exploring these issues.
That being said, I think the way you state your mission appears a little immature to me and many other people, and I think that very seriously detracts from your credibility. This is very important, because with more credibility you could accomplish many more things that make the world a better place. One of the most important things about scientific research is having a concrete, well defined way to attack a problem you're setting out to solve. People are working on quantum mechanics because there are lots of concrete things they can do and test, and people aren't working on antigravity because they don't know where to begin. Your research is from the "antigravity" category of problems, i.e. problems where we don't really have an attack.
This doesn't mean working on these problems isn't useful, or that you should stop, or that you should spend your time doing something else. It does mean that your research is highly philosophical - it is very interesting intellectually, it has potential to attract great young minds to work on interesting things, and it will likely produce results that will get people thinking in new directions. This is always a good thing. But it also means that you are extremely unlikely to find practical solutions to any of these problems, and it seems that everyone is recognizing this other than you. When you present yourself as an organization that is working on practical problems, instead of intellectually interesting philosophical problems, it becomes very difficult for many intelligent people to take you seriously, and I think it significantly detracts from your goal.
Once again, I think what you're doing is great, I wish more people were doing it, and I sincerely wish you luck and success. I am merely trying to show you how many intelligent people that would otherwise be interested in what you're doing view your organization. Please treat this comment as a constructive argument for changing your marketing. At the very least, think seriously about slightly adjusting the wording of your mission statement. It might get more of the right people interested, which will likely accelerate your work, and make all of us better off for it.
I've been working on getting our simulation terminated while attracting a transcedent to upload everybody (giving us a bridge to outside the soon-to-be-terminated simulation).
Also, I'm waiting for SLAC to burn through their barrier and burrow through Palo Alto.
Industrial food production is quite fragile, and the world basically has yet to experience that production in any sort of "failure mode," e.g. global blight due to excessive monocultures.
The probability of such a global failure occurring within the next 100 years strikes me as near 1.0, and thus possibly more pressing than any of the events listed above.
This isn't an existential risk.
If there is a significant die-off in industrial nations it could lead to a major delay in the singularity, perhaps making it impossible altogether.
http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html
In these terms this could be a 'crunch'.
Importance-wise, delays in the singularity are trivial compared to a risk of it not happening at all.
So suppose we are worried that a die-off in industrial nations will actually make it impossible. Isn't this risk (that there is a major catastrophic disaster for industrialized nations and this disaster prevents a singularity from ever taking place) much smaller than the risk that the singularity goes badly when it happens? If so, then this supports the spirit of my original comment: worrying about the singularity going well is more pressing than worrying about major shocks to civilization which do not completely wipe out humanity.
The badness of a delayed singularity is insignificant to the badness of it never happening. So let's consider the latter.
Isn't the risk that a large industrial collapse happens and it prevents a singularity from ever taking place much smaller than the risk that the singularity goes badly? If so, then this agrees with the spirit of my comment: worrying about the singularity going well is much more pressing than worrying about catastrophes that do not immediately wipe out humanity.
Have you contacted Nassim Taleb yet? 'Robustifying' society against such unpredictables is his speciality.
http://fooledbyrandomness.com/