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This is the most profound thing I've read in a while. I'm tempted to whip up some numerical simulation to verify this to some extent... > But here’s the inter
by isoprophlex 6y ago
This is the most profound thing I've read in a while.
I'm tempted to whip up some numerical simulation to verify this to some extent...
> But here’s the interesting part: conditioned on all the steps having succeeded, we should find ourselves near the end of the useful lifetime of our planet’s star—simply because the more time is available on a given planet, the better the odds there. I.e., look around the universe and you should find that, on most of the planets where evolution achieves all the steps, it nearly runs out the planet’s clock in doing so.
- Gupie 6y agoBut we had a billion years left. We have plenty of time to do whether we are going to do before the "planets clock runs out".
- nojokes 6y agoand we just getting started.
- bpodgursky 6y agoRobin has done a fair bit of numerical simulation on his OP posts here https://www.overcomingbias.com/2020/12/how-far-aggressive-aliens-part-2.html/ https://www.overcomingbias.com/2020/12/how-far-aggressive-al..., and says he'll have an actual paper out in a week or two.
- isoprophlex 6y agoThanks! Looking forward to reading the paper..!
- btilly 6y agoWant something scary? The form of reasoning used is exactly that in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument for why humanity is unlikely to last long, and almost certainly will not have a future where we break out and colonize most of the Solar System, let alone the stars. If you believe both arguments, the most likely outcome is that there is one more step on the way to Robin's argument. And that outcome is the replacement of biological intelligence with mechanical. So indeed we give rise to an expanding wave of technological civilization. But we are close to peak population and will not ourselves see that civilization. All hail our future AI overlords!
- bob33212 6y agoWe are within 500 years of creating millions of self sustaining spaceports. We are within 500 years of AGI. We are within 500 years of understanding quantum gravity. We are within 500 years of fixing biological death. The order we get to those and how they interplay and change the world matters so much that it doesn't make sense to worry about making predictions.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoYou state these "we are within 500 years" as if they are certainties, but you show no evidence for any of them. The only one I consider even slightly likely is that we are within 500 years of understanding quantum gravity. So... evidence? Argument? Just stating baldly that it is so is not very convincing.
- bob33212 6y agoI don't have a time machine so no I cannot prove what will happen in the future
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoFine, but you seem to regard it as at least virtually certain. Why? What is your basis for regarding it as close to certain?
- bob33212 6y agohttps://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revol...
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoI've seen that article. I don't find it convincing. Start with the first screen: An exponential graph does not have a sharp kink in it just past where you are standing. The rest of the point is valid (an exponential curve means that the next bit if change will be faster than the last bit, and that's going to surprise you), but he's cheating to try to make the point more visually dramatic. It implies "there's a discontinuous first derivative coming almost immediately", when the argument is actually that there's a continuous increase in the first derivative. So, yeah. Overselling the case, in the graph on the first screen.