Re: Beyond evolution

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Jan 28 2001 - 13:02:59 MST


Ben Goertzel wrote:
>
> My argument is different: the thought process is intrinsically evolutionary,
> I claim;
> and so the mutation and "genetic drift" aspects of evolutionary optimization
> will be present
> in the course of development of AI's even if there is no evolution on the
> inter-AI level
> but only within the long-term development of individual Ai minds.

Okay... so how come I'm Friendly? I feel kind of reluctant to use myself
as an existence proof of Friendliness, since I'm far from what I think is
the ideal... and also because I don't think that philosophies should win
or lose based on the behavior of the people who come up with them... but I
do exist, and I am more Friendly than your theory would seem to allow for,
especially since I got here by specifically deciding to counteract certain
evolutionary behaviors using my intelligence.

Even if my thoughts are generated by an evolutionary process, that's
low-level stuff. It doesn't automatically export evolutionary goals into
the top layer of my intelligence. It would just mean that my mind's
internal cognitive processes use evolution to generate and test possible
thoughts when I'm trying to think of something Friendly. If you're right,
and my cognition is evolutionary, then it would mean that I used one
evolutionary process to defeat another - and that the result was altruism.

-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://intelligence.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



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