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by aidenn0 10 days ago
You are proposing that going from N companies chasing AGI to N-1 companies chasing AGI will have zero effect on when AGI happens?
2 comments

Aidenn0 said they're doing their best to accelerate it, and I'm saying "they're" isn't a single monolithic entity and that they're in competition with each other so they're incentivized to go as fast as possible, so it would be hard to hold them back.
This is a good point, but my point is that they chose to get into this business.

1. Some people have no ethical problems making bombs.

2. Some people have an ethical problem with making bombs so do something else.

3. Some people have an ethical problem with making bombs, but say "well someone else will make it if I don't" so they make bombs.

I think it is reasonable to argue against #3 as a reasonable position.

> Aidenn0 said they're doing their best to accelerate it, and I'm saying "they're" isn't a single monolithic entity and that they're in competition with each other so they're incentivized to go as fast as possible, so it would be hard to hold them back.

Maybe it would run afoul of antitrust regulations, but it's totally realistic for all those competitors to get together and say "hey, we could really fuck up society in our race to get rich with this tech, lets all slow down." And if these companies are run my mature people who don't subordinate every consideration to greed, they'd to it.

I would propose that it is very likely to have zero effect. Your argument supposes they are all working together, like many connected computers calculating primes.

It only takes one of them to do it and they are not sharing information. If the 1 you remove from N is the one that will discover it, then it will dramatically affect when AGI happens. If it is not, then it will have zero effect.

The latter is far more likely if N>2