From: D. Alex (adsl7iie@tpg.com.au)
Date: Fri Aug 05 2005 - 10:44:22 MDT
WE are not medieval alchemists... I do not want to overwork the analogy,
but: they had constraints - time and resources - such that even if they knew
exactly how to build a machine for transmuting lead into gold, they could
not do it. My point is that AI in a box also may be subject to constraints,
of our choice, that would make its chances of escaping about the same as the
chance of alchemists.... ... etc.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Shulman" <cshulman@fas.harvard.edu>
To: <sl4@sl4.org>
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 12:19 AM
Subject: Re: large search spaces don't mean magic
> We already *have* Philosopher's Stones: they're called particle
accelerators.
>
> Quoting "D. Alex" <adsl7iie@tpg.com.au>:
>
> > Ah, the inapropriate analogy again.
> >
> > What chance did the medieval alchemists have of transmuting lead into
gold?
> > Why is the "alchemist" comparison less appropriate than "dogs" for AI
Boxing
> > situation?
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Feb 21 2006 - 04:23:00 MST