We never pitched him on the Singularity Institute (http://singularity.org/research/), but I doubt he's ever been seriously pitched on anything more ambitious than "build a recursively self-improving Artificial Intelligence with a stable, specifiable goal system so that it can improve into a superintelligence and do world optimization." If he's been pitched on anything more frightening than that, I'd really like to know what.
Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
41–50 of 208 posts
Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
#42I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret.
If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.
Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
#43How would one make the difference between frighteningly ambitious , crazy or stupid ?
They all kind of look the same in the beginning, don't they?
Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
#44Presumably PG can't answer because of confidentiality, but the the most ambitious one I've heard is a pitch for a company claiming they could build a trillion dollar company. (They were working on a cement/concrete replacement that was cleaner and cheaper)
Was that the company that said they could make concrete that extracted carbon from air?
Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
#45I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret. If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.
Thanks PG! More or less knew this would be the response :-)
Can you at least share the domain e.g. Mobile apps or personal finance etc?
Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
#46We never pitched him on the Singularity Institute ( http://singularity.org/research/ ), but I doubt he's ever been seriously pitched on anything more ambitious than "build a recursively self-improving Artificial Intelligence with a stable, specifiable goal system so that it can improve into a superintelligence and do world optimization." If he's been pitched on anything more frightening than that, I'd really like to…
I think "build a recursively self-improving Artificial Intelligence WITHOUT a stable, specifiable goal system so that it can improve into a superintelligence and do world optimization" is more frightening, even if less ambitious :)
Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
#47I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret. If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.
Can you say where the scariest and most ambitious convincing pitch was on the following scale?
1) We're going to build the next Facebook!
2) We're going to found the next Apple!
3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level of change as this.)
4) Our product is the next nuclear weapon. You wouldn't want that in the wrong hands, would you?
5) This is going to be the equivalent of the invention of electricity if it works out.
6) We're going to make an IQ-enhancing drug and produce basic change in the human condition.
7) We're going to build serious Drexler-class molecular nanotechnology.
8) We're going to upload a human brain into a computer.
9) We're going to build a recursively self-improving Artificial Intelligence.
10) We think we've figured out how to hack into the computer our universe is running on.
Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
#48I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret. If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.
Can you say where the scariest and most ambitious convincing pitch was on the following scale? 1) We're going to build the next Facebook! 2) We're going to found the next Apple! 3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level…
What a way to reframe the entire conversation like a boss. Prior to reading your comment, I thought my scale went from 1 to 10, but it only went from 1 to 2.
Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
#49I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret. If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.
Can you say where the scariest and most ambitious convincing pitch was on the following scale? 1) We're going to build the next Facebook! 2) We're going to found the next Apple! 3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level…
Eliezer, I believe you just created the Yudkowsky Ambition scale.
My startup, http://automicrofarm.com/, rates between a 3 and a 5, depending on how successful it becomes, in my opinion.
Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you say where the scariest and most ambitious convincing pitch was on the following scale? 1) We're going to build the next Facebook! 2) We're going to found the next Apple! 3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level…
Eliezer, I believe you just created the Yudkowsky Ambition scale. My startup, http://automicrofarm.com/ , rates between a 3 and a 5, depending on how successful it becomes, in my opinion.
Holy schmaloly, that actually is a 3 if it works.
Anyone else got 3 or higher?