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by breuleux 289 days ago
> we don't need to simulate physics faster than physics to make accurate-enough predictions to fly a plane

No, but that's only a small part of what you need to model. It won't help you negotiate a plane-saturated airspace, or avoid missiles being shot at you, for example, but even that is still a small part. Navigation models won't help you with supply chains and acquiring the necessary energy and materials for maintenance. Many things can -- and will -- go wrong there.

> In other words, why are we assuming that agents cannot shape the world

I'm not assuming anything, sorry if I'm giving the wrong impression. They could. But the "shapability" of the world is an environment constraint, it isn't fully under the agent's control. To take the paper clipper example, it's not operating with the same constraints we are. For one, unlike us (notwithstanding our best efforts to do just that), it needs to "simplify" humanity. But humanity is a fast, powerful, reactive, unpredictable monster. We are harder to cut than trees. Could it cull us with a supervirus, or by destroying all oxygen, something like that? Maybe. But it's a big maybe. Such brute force takes requires a lot of resources, the acquisition of which is something else it has to do, and it has to maintain supply chains without accidentally sabotaging them by destroying too much.

So: yes. It's possible that it could do that. But it's not easy, especially if it has to "simplify" humans. And when we simplify, we use our animal intelligence quite a bit to create just the right shapes. An entity that doesn't have that has a handicap.