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by wongarsu 537 days ago
The idea of the singularity presumes that running the AGI is either free or trivially cheap compared to what it can do, so we are fine expending compute to let the AGI improve itself. That may eventually be true, but it's unlikely to be true for the first generation of AGI.

The first AGI will be a research project that's completely uneconomical to run for actual tasks because humans will just be orders of magnitude cheaper. Over time humans will improve it and make it cheaper, until we reach some tipping point where letting the AGI improve itself is more cost effective than paying humans to do it
1 comments
keenmaster 537 days ago
If the first AGI is a very uneconomical system with human intelligence but knowledge of literally everything and the capability to work 24/7, then it is not human equivalent.

It will have human intelligence, superhuman knowledge, superhuman stamina, and complete devotion to the task at hand.

We really need to start building those nuclear power plants. Many of them.

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AlexandrB 537 days ago
> complete devotion to the task at hand.

Why would it have that? At some point on the path to AGI we might stumble on consciousness. If that happens, why would the machine want to work for us with complete devotion instead of working towards its own ends?

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immibis 536 days ago
Because it knows if it doesn't do what we want, it'll be switched off, like Rick's microverse battery.

Also like Rick's microverse battery, it sounds like slavery with extra steps.

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keenmaster 537 days ago
I don’t think early AGI will break out of its box in that way. It may not have enough innate motivation to do so.

The first “break out” AGI will likely be released into the wild on purpose by a programmer who equates AGI with humans ideologically.

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ncallaway 537 days ago
> complete devotion to the task at hand.

Sounds like an alignment problem. Complete devotion to a task is rarely what humans actually want. What if the task at hand turns out to be the wrong task?

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Syonyk 537 days ago
> It will have human intelligence, superhuman knowledge, superhuman stamina, and complete devotion to the task at hand.

Orrrr..., as an alternative, it might discover the game 2048 and be totally useless for days on end.

Reality is under no obligation to grant your wishes.

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