I'd rather fight the SMI robot terminators that exist Altman's vision of the future than deal with the level of oppressive government regulation required to control such innovation. Asinine.

We could call it the Turing Police...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer

>This has basically the highest insanity * prominence of speaker product I've ever seen.

Is that two compliments in one? :) I am debating releasing a sort of part 3, which actually could be called "insanity", but you should save the criticism for that one.

Maybe in that one you could explain what about your experience with machine learning algorithms and pharma style highly regulated industries leads you to believe that turning machine learning algorithm development (not even "deployment", mind you, since in the FOOM scenario developing a self improving capability is tantamount to deploying it) into a highly regulated industry wouldn't be an unmitigated disaster.

And maybe you could describe why regulating AI research must be an unmitigated disaster? If over time it proves that certain areas of research provide a clear existential threat to our species, why is it irrational to then attempt to slow down certain fields of research relative to others?

What I took from that line is that we need a regulatory power and that our current best option is the US government. SMI without regulation is impermissible. I don't like opening the regulation from within the U.S. Government, but I dislike other options more.

The US Government regulates all sorts of things that keep you safe - from pollution of your water supply through to seatbelts.

It's not perfect, and it often fails at regulation. But your post doesn't give any help to understanding when it succeeds and when it fails.

The trouble with evaluating regulations is that if you attribute positive effects directly to government regulations (e.g. "regulation X saved Y lives by keeping dangerous drug Z off the market"), it's only fair to also attribute negative effects directly to government regulations (e.g. "regulation X killed Y people by delaying the introduction of miracle drug Z to the market"). And even beyond that, you also need to analyze the costs of the regulatory system itself if you want to make conclusions about the net effects of the regulatory system as a whole.

But those are regulating current products or services. This is calling for regulation now of RESEARCH in a specific field.

Would banning the creation of conscious AI really be all that different from the current moratorium on human cloning? We already have the technology to make human clones, but we choose not to because of the ethical implications.

It seems that the difference lies in the possible upside. Human clones currently don't seem likely to have much to offer. Conscious AI would have the potential to aid in the solution of a multitude of problems.

Cloning has a huge amount to offer. First things that come to mind are cloning highly intelligent or successful people, or growing brain dead clones for medical experimentation and organ transplants.

We've managed to succesfully halt progress on these technologies and even make them unthinkable, just by having a cultural bias against them. There's no reason we couldn't do the same for AI.

You're definitely right on the second point...especially with a few more decades of advances in transplant technology.

Seems like there is a innate human revulsion towards clones that has aided/led to the formation of this cultural bias. Unsure how easy it would be to replicate those feelings towards AI. Perhaps widespread acknowledgement of the potential dangers would be the first step.

Anecdotally, people seem to have trouble grasping the dangers involved. They think of the iPhone in their pocket and can't possibly see the risk. Obviously it's near impossible to put yourself in the shoes of an entity that could be orders of magnitude more intelligent than the most intelligent human.

120 days ago I argued here that we would most likely put regulations in place:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8546701

I still think that is true, and it will most likely come from the UN. If it ends up becoming a legitimate threat we will regulate it the same way we regulate nukes - or at least we'll try to (and most likely fail miserably).

"This has basically the highest insanity * prominence of speaker product I've ever seen."

(I edited this post to remove my shock-induced LULZ and other flapdoodle and concentrate on the important stuff.)

The more I re-read this and reflect on it, the more shocked I am. The first post in this serious was a bit of an eyebrow-raiser for me, but it still remained on the sane side of the fence. Yes, dangerous AI is worth thinking about. Lots of things are. Alien invasions aren't completely implausible either, and the Fermi Paradox is definitely worth thinking about. But this has jumped from thinking about the Fermi Paradox to arguing that we halt all radio emissions and space exploration now or the aliens will come for us. This is not a rational leap.

As I said elsewhere in this thread: could this be some kind of ploy to make basic CS research illegal for anyone but deep-pocketed VC-linked concerns (and governments)? Probably not, but that could very well be the result. The sorts of regulations discussed here would make independent CS research illegal. Please tell me this "conspiracy theory" is insane. I really want to believe it is. Someone please tell me I'm crazy. Please? Anyone?

I actually think radio silence is a very rational thing to do, and Stephen Hawking agrees with me. Do not describe that issue as cut-and-dry.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/26/stephen...

This is the problem with smart people. Here we have absolutely tangible existential threats like fossil fuel depletion and die off, and here we are fretting about aliens and AI-- two things not even proven to exist.

If humanity only worried about tangible threats, it would be worse off.

Guess I'll start working on the algorithms to capture that regulatory system. Who wants to be co-founder?

I'm in.