One thing I don't hear mentioned as much as I would have thought: part of how human progress tends to work is that the more white balls we pull out of the urn, the more defended we become against various potential black balls or other disasters. Bostrom's scenario seems a bit pessimistic to me, but I haven't read everything he's written on this so maybe he's already responded to this.
Also the prion bioweapons scenario is one I've thought about and it scares the hell out of me. I'm hoping that's more a function of my own neuroticism than a well-grounded fear.
Thinking about Bostrum's metaphor I end up with a different viewpoint that may change the issue somwhat:
A better way of looking at human creativity is that, not only do we increase the ability to reach and grab more and more balls in the urn - we also change the colors of the balls. Some balls, like total elimination due to a natural plague go from black to grey, almost white. If we were to become a spacefaring species, the nuclear annihilation ball goes from black to grey also. One the other hand, the ball representing destruction because we have messed with the evolution of some species has gone from grey to black because, previously all we could do was selective cultivation but now we can engineer the genome.
Note that this whole discussion is less a rational discussion than it is an exploration of our emotional reaction to our place in the world. This is a discussion of Weltanschauung justified by rational argument. So I want to address this issue.
Reformulating the metaphor of the urn changes the viewpoint in the following way. Considering the colors fixed and our reaching in and selecting a choice makes us into more passive actors than we really are. So it leads to a form of "learned helplessness" or a sense that the world is a form of Russian Roulette. Considering the colors as mutable gives us a form of responsibility. We have the power to change the world: we are called to use this power responsibilty to imporve our outcome.
A case in point is my viewpoint of nuclear power. The discovery of nuclear power was like giving a teenager their driver's and firearms licenses along with their first car and a rifle. They can be used for good or ill. It is up to this teenager to use them responsibility. This requires that they put aside their childish ways and grow up.
And, in many ways, haltingly and imperfectly, we are rising to the occasion. At the risk of sounding like a Steven Pinker mini-me, I find that despite what you read in the news, we are becoming better at avoiding all-out war and resolving issues more peacefully. Part of this is because the fear of nuclear annihilation is in the background - we can see it over ourshoulder. This tends to reduce the chance ot acting rashly.
So I am all for a Journal of Dangerous Ideas. This is a forum where we can consider the black balls in the urn and how to change them to be less dark. It also is a place to warn us of which white balls are atthe risk of decoming darker.
One thing I don't hear mentioned as much as I would have thought: part of how human progress tends to work is that the more white balls we pull out of the urn, the more defended we become against various potential black balls or other disasters. Bostrom's scenario seems a bit pessimistic to me, but I haven't read everything he's written on this so maybe he's already responded to this.
Also the prion bioweapons scenario is one I've thought about and it scares the hell out of me. I'm hoping that's more a function of my own neuroticism than a well-grounded fear.
surely stupid teenagers killing themselves is a net good for humanity
I hope the grey ball of AI doesn’t become the last black ball.
Thanks!
Thinking about Bostrum's metaphor I end up with a different viewpoint that may change the issue somwhat:
A better way of looking at human creativity is that, not only do we increase the ability to reach and grab more and more balls in the urn - we also change the colors of the balls. Some balls, like total elimination due to a natural plague go from black to grey, almost white. If we were to become a spacefaring species, the nuclear annihilation ball goes from black to grey also. One the other hand, the ball representing destruction because we have messed with the evolution of some species has gone from grey to black because, previously all we could do was selective cultivation but now we can engineer the genome.
Note that this whole discussion is less a rational discussion than it is an exploration of our emotional reaction to our place in the world. This is a discussion of Weltanschauung justified by rational argument. So I want to address this issue.
Reformulating the metaphor of the urn changes the viewpoint in the following way. Considering the colors fixed and our reaching in and selecting a choice makes us into more passive actors than we really are. So it leads to a form of "learned helplessness" or a sense that the world is a form of Russian Roulette. Considering the colors as mutable gives us a form of responsibility. We have the power to change the world: we are called to use this power responsibilty to imporve our outcome.
A case in point is my viewpoint of nuclear power. The discovery of nuclear power was like giving a teenager their driver's and firearms licenses along with their first car and a rifle. They can be used for good or ill. It is up to this teenager to use them responsibility. This requires that they put aside their childish ways and grow up.
And, in many ways, haltingly and imperfectly, we are rising to the occasion. At the risk of sounding like a Steven Pinker mini-me, I find that despite what you read in the news, we are becoming better at avoiding all-out war and resolving issues more peacefully. Part of this is because the fear of nuclear annihilation is in the background - we can see it over ourshoulder. This tends to reduce the chance ot acting rashly.
So I am all for a Journal of Dangerous Ideas. This is a forum where we can consider the black balls in the urn and how to change them to be less dark. It also is a place to warn us of which white balls are atthe risk of decoming darker.
“Ideas for “challenges” (Skull-breaker challenge, Pass out challenge) that serve no purpose other than maiming/killing stupid teenagers”
😭
So funny
I love it. If it ever takes off somewhere I have a submission, an old bioterror idea I had in highschool.