Energetics of the brain and AI

Does the energy requirements for the human brain give energy constraints that give reason to doubt the feasibility of artificial intelligence? This report will review some relevant estimates of brain bioenergetics and analyze some of the methods of estimating brain emulation energy requirements. Turning to AI, there are reasons to believe the energy requirements for de novo AI to have little correlation with brain (emulation) energy requirements since cost could depend merely of the cost of processing higher-level representations rather than billions of neural firings. Unless one thinks the human way of thinking is the most optimal or most easily implementable way of achieving software intelligence, we should expect de novo AI to make use of different, potentially very compressed and fast, processes

Probing the Improbable: Methodological Challenges for Risks with Low Probabilities and High Stakes

Some risks have extremely high stakes. For example, a worldwide pandemic or asteroid impact could potentially kill more than a billion people. Comfortingly, scientific calculations often put very low probabilities on the occurrence of such catastrophes. In this paper, we argue that there are important new methodological problems which arise when assessing global catastrophic risks and we focus on a problem regarding probability estimation. When an expert provides a calculation of the probability of an outcome, they are really providing the probability of the outcome occurring, given that their argument is watertight. However, their argument may fail for a number of reasons such as a flaw in the underlying theory, a flaw in the modeling of the problem, or a mistake in the calculations. If the probability estimate given by an argument is dwarfed by the chance that the argument itself is flawed, then the estimate is suspect. We develop this idea formally, explaining how it differs from the related distinctions of model and parameter uncertainty. Using the risk estimates from the Large Hadron Collider as a test case, we show how serious the problem can be when it comes to catastrophic risks and how best to address it

Should we campaign against sex robots?

In September 2015 a well-publicised Campaign Against Sex Robots (CASR) was launched. Modelled on the longer-standing Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the CASR opposes the development of sex robots on the grounds that the technology is being developed with a particular model of female-male relations (the prostitute-john model) in mind, and that this will prove harmful in various ways. In this chapter, we consider carefully the merits of campaigning against such a technology. We make three main arguments. First, we argue that the particular claims advanced by the CASR are unpersuasive, partly due to a lack of clarity about the campaign’s aims and partly due to substantive defects in the main ethical objections put forward by campaign’s founder(s). Second, broadening our inquiry beyond the arguments proferred by the campaign itself, we argue that it would be very difficult to endorse a general campaign against sex robots unless one embraced a highly conservative attitude towards the ethics of sex, which is likely to be unpalatable to those who are active in the campaign. In making this argument we draw upon lessons from the campaign against killer robots. Finally, we conclude by suggesting that although a generalised campaign against sex robots is unwarranted, there are legitimate concerns that one can raise about the development of sex robots

Monte Carlo model of brain emulation development

Whole brain emulation (WBE) is the possible future technology of one-to-one modelling of the function of the entire (human) brain. It would entail automatically scanning a brain, decoding the relevant neural circuitry, and generate a computer-runnable simulation that has a one-to-one relationship with the functions in the real brain (as well as an adequate virtual or real embodiment)2. Obviously this is a hugely ambitious project far outside current capabilities, possibly not even feasible in theory3. However, should such a technology ever become feasible there are good reasons to expect the consequences to be dramatic4 : it would enable software intelligence, copyable human capital, new ethical problems, and (depending on philosophical outlook) immortality and a posthuman species. Even if one does not ascribe a high probability to WBE being ever feasible it makes sense to watch for trends indicating that it may be emerging, since adapting to its emergence may require significant early and global effort taking decades5. Predicting when a future technology emerges is hard, and there are good reasons to be cautious about overconfident pronouncements. In particular, predictions about the future of artificial intelligence have not been very successful and there are good theoretical reasons to have expected this6. However, getting a rough estimate of what is needed for a technology to be feasible compared to current trends can give a helpful “order of magnitude estimate” of how imminent a technology is, and how quickly it could move from a primitive state to a mature state. This paper will describe a simple Monte Carlo simulation of the emergence of WBE as a first tool for thinking about it

Space races: settling the universe fast

This report examines the issue of the resource demands and constraints for very fast large-scale settlement by technologically mature civilizations. I derive various bounds due to the energy and matter requirements for relativistic probes, and compare with bounds due to the need to avoid collisions with interstellar dust. When two groups of the same species race for the universe, the group with the biggest resources completely preempts the other group under conditions of transparency. Expanding nearby at a lower speed in order to gain resources to expand far at a high speed is effective. If alien competitors are expected this sets a distance scale affecting the desired probe distribution

Future of Humanity Institute 2005-2024: final report

An oral history and research summary of the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI)

Happiness and industry 4.0

There is talk about a “fourth industrial revolution” that will change how goods are produced, itself a result of the underlying digital transformation and global economic shifts. Much of this has been a discussion of what manufacturing will be like, and how this influences economic and social progress. However, an understudied question is how this transformation can affect human well-being. Clearly past shifts in human modes of production and societal organization have changed both the opportunities for living a good life, and how they can be expressed. This paper aims to analyze how Industry 4.0 affects these factors, and in particular note where research, technical or policy work is needed to ensure that it enhances well-being rather than impairs it