by Dan | Dec 12, 2020 | Managing the Transhuman Transition
Can we do better than the state of nature? Or, rather, can we do better than nature herself? When it comes to the trajectory of intelligence itself, some humans seem to think that we can. From Goertzel’s ideas about decentralized artificial general intelligence...
by Dan | Nov 30, 2020 | Exploring the End Game
Defining the Term A utility-monster is Rober Nozak’s thought experiment about an entity who could be so happy as to outshine all possible happiness of all possible humans, and humans (by utilitarian logic) would be obligated to serve this monster – and...
by Dan | Nov 14, 2020 | Discerning the Good Itself
This past week I posted the following on Facebook, in reference to my article Where Should Humanity Steer Sentience?: If utilitronium (a conscious, super-blissful substrate) could simultaneously explore future kinds of “the good” (beyond utilitarianism),...
by Dan | Nov 14, 2020 | Discerning the Good Itself
The philosopher David Pearce has posited that the pain-pleasure axis of conscious experience may well be the “world’s inbuilt metric of value,” a kind of ultimate barometer of good or bad. While I agree with Pearce that positive qualia (positive...
by Dan | Aug 30, 2020 | Managing the Transhuman Transition
In the coming 20-30 years, I suspect we’ll enter a phase of the posthuman transition (what I refer to as “Phase 4”) where brain-machine interface technology (possibly in combination with VR, pharmacology, and nanotech) will facilitate better...
by Dan | Jun 13, 2020 | Morality as Arbitrary and Contextual
I have heard it argued that post-human intelligence will be “loving”, or will inevitably express love to other intelligences – humans an animals included. In this essay, I aim to lay out an argument for why the singularity or post-human transition...
by Dan | May 4, 2020 | Amoral Solipsism, Exploring the End Game
The advancement of the sciences will, at some point in the decades of centuries ahead, lead humanity to a place where we can expand our cognition and sentience, and potentially build artificial general intelligences vastly beyond our own. Exactly how that transition...
by Dan | Mar 14, 2020 | Managing the Transhuman Transition
As human beings we are propelled by our varied hopes, our lives are in many ways driven by them. On the day-to-day, we hope to make the sale, to avoid traffic, to feel better after a good night’s sleep. In the context of our lifetime, we hope to finish our book,...
by Dan | Feb 23, 2020 | AI Policy and Governance, Global Intelligent Tech Governance
Once the grand vision of artificial general intelligence (or the general importance of AI Power in the years ahead) is seen or, there are only two main responses from extremely ambitious persons: . Response 1: Build Power Quietly “I will pursue technological...
by Dan | Jan 31, 2020 | Exploring the End Game, Managing the Transhuman Transition
Superintelligence holds the promise of potentially unlocking the secrets of nature or truth, alleviating suffering on earth, or destroying us all. I have long argued that the emergence of post-human intelligence will almost certainly imply to end of humanity as we...
