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Great story! One thing that stuck out to me—if you had an infinitely powerful computer, the "coding" aspect of it should take no time at all. All you have to do

Great story! One thing that stuck out to me—if you had an infinitely powerful computer, the "coding" aspect of it should take no time at all. All you have to do is come up with a description language to say what you want•, and b) seed rules for a genetic programming language, and then throw it at your infinitely powerful computer. You'll get a working program instantly. • This might still be significantly difficult. If only you had a simulated version of yourself that you could use as a control subject so the computer could test whether or not the generated program met your expectations...

bad_user 13y ago
Also, changing outcomes in this simulated universe, as in acts of God that defy its physical laws, would be extremely difficult without messing it up, so even if the developer would want to, say, cure all suffering, it would abstain from doing so. And the developer could save the consciousness of people that he likes and maybe restore them somewhere else, like in another universe, with a different set of laws (e.g. heaven).
Chattered 13y ago
You'll get the program instantly, but writing formal specifications isn't trivial, especially when they have to be machine readable. Consider that there are some problems where the complexity of the coding is mirrored exactly in the complexity of the specification (for a simple example, a switch-case statement has as much logic in specification as it does in code). But I'd also say that most problems people want solving are massively underspecified. For example, what is the formal specification for the problem that your preferred web-browser solves which its competitors do not?
TophWells 13y ago
Processing power is cheaper than programmer time. If it were really as easy as coding the desired result instead of coding the desired process, we'd already be doing it. And in some specialised cases, we already are: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_set_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_set_programming Simulated copies of the programmer would probably speed up the process a lot, though.

bad_user 13y ago

Also, changing outcomes in this simulated universe, as in acts of God that defy its physical laws, would be extremely difficult without messing it up, so even if the developer would want to, say, cure all suffering, it would abstain from doing so. And the developer could save the consciousness of people that he likes and maybe restore them somewhere else, like in another universe, with a different set of laws (e.g. heaven).

Chattered 13y ago

You'll get the program instantly, but writing formal specifications isn't trivial, especially when they have to be machine readable. Consider that there are some problems where the complexity of the coding is mirrored exactly in the complexity of the specification (for a simple example, a switch-case statement has as much logic in specification as it does in code). But I'd also say that most problems people want solving are massively underspecified. For example, what is the formal specification for the problem that your preferred web-browser solves which its competitors do not?

TophWells 13y ago

Processing power is cheaper than programmer time. If it were really as easy as coding the desired result instead of coding the desired process, we'd already be doing it. And in some specialised cases, we already are: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_set_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_set_programming Simulated copies of the programmer would probably speed up the process a lot, though.