Re: Singularity and the general public

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
Date: Thu Apr 12 2001 - 21:41:29 MDT


On Fri, Apr 06, 2001 at 08:33:09PM -0400, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:

> It's not so much about trying to keep a secret. Desirable or not, ethical
> or not, running in secret hasn't really been an option ever since Bill Joy
> wrote that Wired article. Rather, while we're trying to expand to the

Right. Joy already put you on the defensive. When you have public
mailing lists and books and public web sites and journalists, ahem,
already reading all of them, there's not much you can do.

You're not just up against Bill Joy, but also governments. True, their
ability to enforce laws against certain types of coding and research
is limited, but death panalties and financial rewards for informants
can provide substantial incentives to comply.

Governments are conservative. They are particularly conservative when
it comes to threats to their power, and the topics discussed here, when
they come to fruition, will do just that.

Secrecy, even discussions of it, will increase their fear and distrust of
you. Your only option is to play a game of chess, where the moves are open,
rather then poker.

-Declan



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