Re: [sl4] Re: studying at the School of Informatics in University of Edinburgh

From: Tim Freeman (tim@fungible.com)
Date: Fri Mar 13 2009 - 09:42:55 MDT


From: Roko Mijic <rmijic@googlemail.com>
>I'm still not certain, but I think that AI/AGI research is the most
>fulfilling thing for me to do with the next 6 years of my life.
...
>Lastly, there is the issue of impact upon the future of humanity. ...
>It is bad because the human mind (at least my mind) finds it hard to
>cope with the immense cognitive dissonance that is created by this
>weight of responsibility, and the implication that there is a
>significant chance that the human race will be wiped out by someone's
>uFAI project. Also, merely contemplating the size of the stakes (both
>the reward for success, and the penalty for failure) makes you think
>that you are insane.

I've spent the last few years mostly doing things entirely unrelated
with AGI research. In my experience, once you're aware of the issues,
you'll pay the costs listed above whether you do constructive work on
the issues or not. So they aren't really costs of working on the
issues unless the alternative is to completely fill your attention
with meaningless distractions so you don't think about what's really
happening. Apparently I'm not up to that. I just can't party hard
enough.

So I think you're doing the right thing.

Let me know if you figure out how to get paid.

-- 
Tim Freeman               http://www.fungible.com           tim@fungible.com


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