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Understanding the workings of gross anatomy didn't make gross anatomy irrelevant. It instead ushered in a new age of surgical intervention that saved a lot of

Understanding the workings of gross anatomy didn't make gross anatomy irrelevant. It instead ushered in a new age of surgical intervention that saved a lot of lives and prolonged life in general. I know I'm not alone in having a relative that would have been dead twenty years ago if not for the ability to radically alter the mechanics of a malfunctioning heart. We shouldn't cease to try to understand the world because of the risk new knowledge brings. Rather, we should also understand the risk and act to intercept and mitigate it. But don't condemn Alzheimer's patients to a slow twilight death because of the risk of strong AI; that's not an acceptable tradeoff.

ajuc 10y ago
> that's not an acceptable tradeoff This depends on the estimated probabilities of worst case scenario. I don't think you can just handwave it as "always worth it".
- fixermark 10y ago
  The scenario for a lack of sufficient Alzheimer's research is currently what we're living with: 83,000 deaths a year, and approximately 5 million patients living with the disease, in the US alone. Probability: 1.0. I don't know if it's "worst-case," depends on whether the disease ratios are progressing year-over-year, and I don't have those numbers at my fingertips right now. I have yet to hear a realistic strong AI nightmare scenario (i.e. one that doesn't presume a magically-smarter-than-all-of-us-combined AI as a McGuffin with no solid functional grounding) with a probability anywhere near offsetting that cost. Besides, stacking the constant chronic cost of a few tens of thousands of deaths against a nonzero-probability species-ending scenario is nearly an apples-to-oranges comparison---by the logic of simple probability-to-risk modeling, we should be stopping all disease research right now and pouring 100% of that money into fast asteroid detection and mitigation solutions. Practically speaking, I think we have plenty of time while we are doing the research to cure a current and real disease to puzzle through the detection and mitigation strategies for a strong AI threat that is---at best---decades out (and, some would argue, will come to pass inevitably with or without our Alzheimer's research, yes?).

ajuc 10y ago

> that's not an acceptable tradeoff This depends on the estimated probabilities of worst case scenario. I don't think you can just handwave it as "always worth it".

fixermark 10y ago
The scenario for a lack of sufficient Alzheimer's research is currently what we're living with: 83,000 deaths a year, and approximately 5 million patients living with the disease, in the US alone. Probability: 1.0. I don't know if it's "worst-case," depends on whether the disease ratios are progressing year-over-year, and I don't have those numbers at my fingertips right now. I have yet to hear a realistic strong AI nightmare scenario (i.e. one that doesn't presume a magically-smarter-than-all-of-us-combined AI as a McGuffin with no solid functional grounding) with a probability anywhere near offsetting that cost. Besides, stacking the constant chronic cost of a few tens of thousands of deaths against a nonzero-probability species-ending scenario is nearly an apples-to-oranges comparison---by the logic of simple probability-to-risk modeling, we should be stopping all disease research right now and pouring 100% of that money into fast asteroid detection and mitigation solutions. Practically speaking, I think we have plenty of time while we are doing the research to cure a current and real disease to puzzle through the detection and mitigation strategies for a strong AI threat that is---at best---decades out (and, some would argue, will come to pass inevitably with or without our Alzheimer's research, yes?).