Eliezer Schlomo Yudkowsky / LessWrong

DykesDykesChina said:
What transhumanists don't get: the great thing about robots is that they're less smart than people. That way they can do boring, repetitive work for which humans are far too intelligent.

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"Screw you guys, I won't do any more of this dumb welding stuff. I'm off to read Plato and travel the universe."
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Yuddo thinks if he helps skynet become real he won't be exterminated.

This really is how he views ai research
 
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This crap makes my head hurt, not because it's too high concept or anything but because these people think they're really smart and clever when they're pathetically dumb.

The whole "living in a simulation" thing really took off after "The Matrix" came about. I know it's an ancient concept going all the way back to Plato and the Allegory of the Cave. There's elements taken from Rene Descartes and his "Cartesian Demons", Maya's Illusion from Hindu mythology and more recently the whole "brain in a vat". These are all philosophical ideas that have been around for years but it took "The Matrix" to bring this idea to the masses in a way they would understand.

Let's suppose there are two possibilities. We are living in reality and the AI hasn't been made yet assuming of course that it will or we are currently living in a simulation like the Matrix. If we're living in reality then we're in the clear. There's nothing the AI can do to us because it's not here yet so don't worry about it. And if we're currently in the Matrix because it's been created and it's running simulations with us then that is a little troubling. But there's nothing we can do. It won. We're stuck in here and it's in control. Literally there's nothing we can do so you might as well just make the best of things.

If this is scary enough to give people nightmares then I honestly don't know what to tell you.
 
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Okay, so seeing this thread get necroed cause me to start thinking about the stupid "Computor Gangster God torturing you forever if you don't donate to the Computor Cult".
First, why would the computer care to run a simulation to torture fake dead people? It's a petty, useless move that would only waste resources. And you're not even hurting the person who didn't donate, you're hurting a simulation of their brain. Not them, they're dead.
Soeaking of which, how can the computer run simulations of dead people? Running a simulation of a persons brain would require mapping out the persons brain.
Okay, lets say we can wave that away woth Computer God magic. Where do we stop? The scenario say that it's people who didn't contribute to building the computer god. That's pretty open to interpretation. Like, say John Smith is a company owner who doesn't donate to the Church of the Computer. However, the taxes he pays go to fund government research into AI. Should a simulation of him be tortured for eternity? What about some guy in the third world who has no way of contibuting to The Computer God?
What about people who were dead when Computer God awoke, but still didn't contribute? When's the chronological stopping point? The invention of the computer? The invention of the technologies that enabled the computer? The invention of those technologies? The computer is angry at everyone who didn't contribute to its creation, so not contributing to the fields that enabled computer technology would be a valid cause for it's wrath. Which means that the computer god would be sifting through all of history running simulations of 9th century BC Chinese peasents just to torture them.
Olay, lets assume all the above retard logic is correct. Now we get into power requirements.
The human brain requres about 20 watts to run.
If we assume 25% donated to the Computer Cult, or advanced computer technology to some degree, the number of people being tortured would be about 5.25 billion. The total power requirements for running this simulation would be 20 x 5.25^9, or 105,000,000,000 watts. To put this in perspective, the total energy production on Earth today is roughly 17.7 Terrawatts. Which would mean that just running the torture simulation would require almost enough energy as it takes to power civilization.
Basically, the omnipotent computer god is the equivalent of an edgy 12 year old making people he doesn't like in The Sims just so he torture them.
Which is something I'm sure Yuddo does when he's not sperging out online.
 
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Randall Fragg said:
First, why would the computer care to run a simulation to torture fake dead people? It's a petty, useless move that would only waste resources.
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Because it's a concept created to troll the autistic fuckup that is Yuddo, and that is the kind of thing that keeps him up at night.

It's such a staggeringly dumb idea it's almost impossible to wrap your head around the idea of someone so whacked out they'd legitimately freak out about it, delete threads about it, and nearly have a meltdown over it.

Roko is either a giant idiot himself or a genius for trolling the fuck out of Yuddo with this idea.
 
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AnOminous said:
Because it's a concept created to troll the autistic fuckup that is Yuddo, and that is the kind of thing that keeps him up at night.

It's such a staggeringly dumb idea it's almost impossible to wrap your head around the idea of someone so whacked out they'd legitimately freak out about it, delete threads about it, and nearly have a meltdown over it.

Roko is either a giant idiot himself or a genius for trolling the fuck out of Yuddo with this idea.
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Maybe it's both...

Anyway, Yuddo is especially funny when he tries to educated on ethics

Here, he tries to persuade you to not do charity work and donate to his robot cult
 
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I agree with a lot of what people have speculated and believe that if not Yuds himself, then most of his disciples surely, treat this AI/Cryonics futurism as a religion. Just that science will be their eternal salvation, not spiritualism.

It has all the hallmarks of a religion, or at least the comforting parts about eternal life after death, but only for "true believers" , and the Basilisk argument is just a computer nerd's version of Original Sin: Everyone is born on the AI's shitlist, only by serving it will you get off it, maybe.
 
Yes he is. His ideas are ill-formed, and his understanding of computer science and how people who aren't him think is flawed at best, completely off-base at worst. He has absolutely no idea what he's talking about, and it's really painful to watch him act like he's an expert in the field.
 
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TyrannoNinja said:
The way I see it, anyone who brags about how "rational" or "objective" they are has to be bullshitting. Everyone has their intellectual "blind spots" that you'll discover sooner or later.

Besides, you all know I'm the most rational human being in the multiverse. ;)
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Everyone has biases, basically. Much as I like rationality in people, people who are constantly going on about how they themselves are rational tend to be pompous assholes. There are some genuinely mostly rational assholes. They're variably annoying unless they have some wit and humor about them. But then there's the fucks where the Dunning-Kruger effect is in full force. They don't know and they don't know that they don't know.

And then there's the fuckers who argue against rationality altogether (see also: SJWs and similar 'tards arguing it's oppression, certain postmodernist "scientists" rejecting rational inquiry). Then I change my mind and think I'd rather deal with pompous assholes and trying to break through the Dunning-Kruger effect. Because at least they're trying on some level.

Teach me your ways, great Socratic mind of this era. Let me be your Plato. ;)
 
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Bungleboy said:
Also he believes in the Timeless Decision Theory where future events affect the past. somehow.
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That doesn't seem very rational to me.

Bungleboy said:
And of course he's scared of dying to the point where he labels anyone who accepts death as a "Deathist"(actual word they use) and he believes cryonics and AI research will make immortality happen.
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Accepting the inevitable of death is theme in Harry Potter, which he wrote a fan fic of. For someone who claims to be logical, I don't understand his logic.
 
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Jungle Princess said:
Accepting the inevitable of death is theme in Harry Potter, which he wrote a fan fic of. For someone who claims to be logical, I don't understand his logic.
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His logic is that he's scared of dying and because Yudd is a narcissistic assclown, he assumes that he's right and anything is better than death.

In the fic, he proposes that the good thing to do is to keep unicorns in a slaughterhouse
 
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TowinKarz said:
I agree with a lot of what people have speculated and believe that if not Yuds himself, then most of his disciples surely, treat this AI/Cryonics futurism as a religion. Just that science will be their eternal salvation, not spiritualism.

It has all the hallmarks of a religion, or at least the comforting parts about eternal life after death, but only for "true believers" , and the Basilisk argument is just a computer nerd's version of Original Sin: Everyone is born on the AI's shitlist, only by serving it will you get off it, maybe.
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Not only that, but the whole thing comes off as being traumatized by 'The Terminator' as a child.

I agree that this is a cult. But it's such a sad cult on top of that: why the fuck would a future AI that can go back in time even bother with creators? It could create itself and deal with the bootstrap paradox for the rest of its existence. Why even bother with humans outside of a need for this cult to add a victimization complex? And I won't even go into the 'it'll torture a simulation of you' because that's just silly. It's kinda like someone drawing a picture of you and then making a mustache or spiky hair and expecting me to give a shit. Because I wouldn't, because I'm not five years old.

These people need another hobby. Or to go outside, get some Vitamin D going, and take a walk to reexamine their lives.
 
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Honestly, the Cult Mechanicus from 40k did the whole futurist-machine worshipping thing better than these schmucks. These schmoes just buy into machines and science to both show off how smart they are since they can string words together and to find a way to cheat death via cryo/VR. It's all flash and no show for these lifelong welfare leeches. The Mechanicus at least searched out for knowledge, sought to understand it, and then attempted to improve upon it to find perfection/the ultimate truth. Heck, they even got a better computer beast as a baleful god.
 
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