Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: Hanson@charon.arc.nasa.gov (Robin Hanson) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Down and Out in Nanoland Message-ID: Date: 9 Jan 91 22:25:24 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 50 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In josh@cs.rutgers.edu writes: >I hereby offer Robin Hanson (only) 2-to-1 odds on the following >statement: > >"There will, by 1 January 2010, exist a robotic system capable >of the cleaning an ordinary house (by which I mean the same job >my current cleaning service does, namely vaccuum, dust, and scrub >the bathroom fixtures). This system will not employ any direct >copy of any individual human brain. Furthermore, the copying of >a living human brain, neuron for neuron, synapse for synapse, into >any synthetic computing medium, successfully operating afterwards >and meeting objective criteria for the continuity of personality, >consciousness, and memory, will not have been done by that date." I believe this was in responce to my saying: >(I'd be happy to offer betting odds if you would phrase a precise claim.) Thank you for taking the trouble to phrase a precise claim! I believe the effort has paid off in helping us isolate where (or whether) we disagree. The 67% chance you are estimating for your claim does not seem unreasonable to me. I'd say the reasonable odds are somewhere between 20 and 80 percent, and so, at present, am not willing to bet against odds in that range. (Tranlated: I'll bet either for it or against it if you give me 4:1 odds.) The reason I say this is that, while it would be clearly impressive and terribly useful, I do not take a housecleaning robot as a stand in for "human-level AI". Although perhaps if I thought about it more I would come to believe that there wasn't any other plausible way to make such a robot. We could migrate a discussion to comp.ai on this if you wish. I'd say the chances of just the uploading part of your claim are much less than the household robot part, so my estimate above is domianted by the robot part. Robin [Note to readers: Robin's paper on idea futures, which was summarized in the last Update, is available in full for FTP from planchet.rutgers.edu (the nanotech archives). It is in nanotech/papers/hanson. Note to Robin: The reason I'm interested in "robotic level AI" has to do with the economic argument you gave for overpopulation by uploaded copies. I believe that those economic niches will long have been filled by lower robotic forms of AI. I am happy to note that we seem to be in agreement once the specifics are carefully formulated! --JoSH]