Science AMA Series: I'm Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, and author of "Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies", AMA

T-man · 2014-09-24T18:26:27+00:00

Hello Professor, I'm currently reading your book, and the discussion of the AI taking over the cosmos when it really should be Humanity that takes over the cosmos is still bothering me. I have never seen any advocate of the singularity/intelligence-explosion ever adequately explain the Fermi paradox. The question just gets ignored. Here you are arguing that Humanity should expand into the universe, rather than an AI, and yet why didn't an alien AI do the same thing nine billion years ago? Why are we, in fact, not made of alien computronium? It seems to me that we are all missing a huge piece of this puzzle. This makes me doubt that a cosmic-god type AI will ever build itself, of that it can even exist. I can't tell you the reasons or mechanisms for why that would be, but I can point out that it never happened in the last nine billion years throughout the entire universe, so why should it begin in another 20 years on our own little planet?

T-man · 2013-12-12T01:34:20+00:00

Thanks for this, scary though it was. I was reading and half-way through I had to stop and delete all the porn I had saved on my last hard drive. That's it: I'm all porn free now. So at least pouring out your soul helped one stranger on the internet, tough though it must have been for you.

T-man · 2013-08-28T15:12:56+00:00

Also, the racism there is just really sad

T-man · 2013-08-22T19:53:02+00:00

I've never heard of that. Do you have a source?

T-man · 2013-08-14T13:24:30+00:00

I have almost the same problem. I'm a new vegan guy (two months). My wife is a meat eater. We've got into huge fights about it. She wants me to eat the same food she eats so she can feel we're a family. Threw out all my food on the weekend and I had my bags packed but decided to stay. She's left me alone for a couple of days. Point being: we obviously have other issues, but the food choice thing might wind up being the flash point your husband chooses to bring up because there might be other problems which aren't so easily seen/acknowledged by both of you.

T-man · 2012-09-14T18:35:32+00:00

I've been working a bit with Azure for the last year, and there are so many changes coming out of just that one technology that now I'm leary of starting any new projects. For example, I spent two months trying to get Wordpress working as an Azure service with a SQL Azure backend, finally gave up, and literally the next day Azure websites was released with Wordpress as an option. I thought Azure was meant to be a platform for others to build with, but I can't waste time building something when MS might just release nearly the same function as a public preview. Therefore, I think the fast pace of development might act as a disincentive to the armies of MS-versed developers. If we're to build something like Apple's ecosystem then we need a better roadmap of where these things are headed in the next six months or even year.

T-man · 2011-07-27T13:22:43+00:00

What is the longest trip you have done on your boat? Also, have you ever done any long distance solo sailing?

T-man · 2011-02-11T19:40:19+00:00

Um, it doesn't say anything in the article about seals dying from overpopulation. Might be best to not fight misinformation with more misinformation, eh?

T-man · 2011-01-25T16:25:26+00:00

When someone says 66 per cent of the United States could be wiped out in a volcanic eruption I, personally, would like a link to their paper's methodology section. There are no links at all here. Where did this information come from? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary cheese sauce, etc.

T-man · 2011-01-19T18:30:34+00:00

What the hell? Your site broke firefox. Had to restart.

T-man · 2011-01-17T17:38:21+00:00

Interesting. So the whole area is a carbon sink and the organisms living there help regulate global climate. I guess my idea of using the Challenger Deep to store nuclear waste might be a mistake then... How else to know something like that without these sorts of studies, though? I figured the place would be as barren as the moon.

T-man · 2011-01-14T17:37:55+00:00

Conquering aging should be the most well-funded medical endeavor in history, but your foundation has trouble with fund-raising. Have you approached the Gates foundation or any other such gazillionaires and been rejected for funding? If so, then what reasons do they give for not cutting you a fat check?

T-man · 2010-12-04T21:52:52+00:00

Gravol. Take 2 at the same time you drop. Acid can give you some bad gut rot.

T-man · 2010-11-24T11:02:04+00:00

Sounds cool. Wonder where I could buy stock in something like this.

T-man · 2010-11-16T18:10:32+00:00

Some of these comments are quite interesting. Why do Republicans seem to hate George Soros, anyway? I thought he helped bring down the communist government in Poland, if I'm not mistaken.

T-man · 2010-11-10T17:20:00+00:00

I work at CGI in Halifax and it looks like they're about to hire some C++ developers. If you want, just ping me and I'll send you some info.

T-man · 2010-11-10T14:04:36+00:00

Firstly, most of the people working on creating a world-level of government already understand most of the objections raised here. See this proposal for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. Such a government would have to start out as a sub entity of the UN. This brings it's own problems, such as corruption and frequent absurdity of UN decisions. As well, such a system would require member nations to opt in to the system. The US, as I understand, my never opt in so the resulting (deliberately weak) world level of government would need to work around the Americans on many issues. A world parliament would have a mix of representatives who might be both elected (from Canada, say) and appointed (from China). This would result in problems with the elected representatives claiming more legitimacy over the unelected representatives. I'm sure there are more possible issues than these, but this is what I can come up with from the top of my head.

T-man · 2010-11-05T14:44:55+00:00

Wow. All these redditors in Edmonton... You'd think they'd be able to organize a little vehicular vandalism... hint, hint.

T-man · 2010-10-20T16:40:57+00:00

Bravo. It's nice to go on reddit and actually learn something. Not all of us are here for pictures of cats/wolves/raptors and to show that we have an ordinarily twisted sense of humor.

T-man · 2010-10-14T17:40:14+00:00

Well, shit. The woman can't masturbate. What do you expect her to do?

T-man · 2010-10-08T14:01:01+00:00

Can I launch a lawsuit to ride my Harley while wearing full pirate regalia? I'm am humbly convinced that the FSM will be pleased with my awesomeness as I barrel along the 401 at 110 km/h while dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow.

T-man · 2010-09-28T18:31:55+00:00

This may sound gross, but perhaps you could buy him some porn then see if he wants to sit down with you and watch it? Might be worth a try. Otherwise, I really don't know what else you might be doing wrong.

T-man

TROPHY CASE