Superintelligence as a Cause or Cure for Risks of Astronomical Suffering

Discussions about the possible consequences of creating superintelligence have included the possibility of existential risk, often understood mainly as the risk of human extinction. We argue that suffering risks (s-risks) , where an adverse outcome would bring about severe suffering on an astronomical scale, are risks of a comparable severity and probability as risks of extinction. Preventing them is the common interest of many different value systems. Furthermore, we argue that in the same way as superintelligent AI both contributes to existential risk but can also help prevent it, superintelligent AI can both be a suffering risk or help avoid it. Some types of work aimed at making superintelligent AI safe will also help prevent suffering risks, and there may also be a class of safeguards for AI that helps specifically against s-risks

Strain induced correlation gaps in carbon nanotubes

We calculate the change in the correlation gap of armchair carbon nanotubes with uniaxial elastic strain. We predict that such a stretching will enlarge the correlation gap for all carbon nanotubes by a change that could be as large as several meV per percent of applied strain, in contrast with pure band structure calculations where no change for armchair carbon nanotubes is predicted. The correlation effects are considered within a self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation to the Hubbard model with on-site repulsion only.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Multiexciton molecules in the hexaborides

We investigate multiexciton bound states in a semiconducting phase of divalent hexaborides. Due to three degenerate valleys in both the conduction and valence bands the binding energy of a 6-exciton molecule is greatly enhanced by the shell effect. The ground state energies of multiexciton molecules are calculated using the density functional formalism. We also show that charged impurities stabilize multiexciton complexes leading to condensation of localized excitons. These complexes can act as nucleation centers of local moments.Comment: RevTEX, 7 pages with 3 figure