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> No technological form exists in a vacuum, likewise Technology is neither a monolith nor a ball pit of functionally independent atoms I agree the analogy isn'

> No technological form exists in a vacuum, likewise Technology is neither a monolith nor a ball pit of functionally independent atoms I agree the analogy isn't perfect, but one can say that despite technologies not having a discreet origin, we can reason about them in retrospect. So maybe modern artificial neural networks were initially made possible by improvements in microscopy and experiments in cell culture to deduce the mechanisms of biological neurons, but we can reason about ANNs as a technology that is changing what is possible by a machine. I imagine Nick would also be inclined to be fatalistic about technological progress, in that these "black balls" will inevitably be found. His main stance is that we should be enacting the global ethical frameworks around these technologies much quicker.

walleeee 5y ago
> despite technologies not having a discreet origin, we can reason about them in retrospect Yes, agreed, good point I also agree about Nick's probable fatalism, and I think his work is brilliant and valuable, however one thing irks me. He's made a successful career out of hypothetical "black ball" speculation while saying little about the potential for blackness of the tech we already have. He frames existential risk as if we are on the cusp of dramatic danger but still relatively safe. In truth we are already over the cliff & falling rapidly Take his paperclip maximizer. They already exist! We need not wait for some future AI to realize a badly misaligned objective function. We're already determined to transmute the remains of our homeworld's long dead into plastic and atmospheric carbon