Post-apocalyptic 1. Hundreds of millions of years after civilization destroys itself and all complex life on Earth, human-level intelligence emerges again and sophisticated civilizations begin to form. Told as alternate history in which humans actually evolved in the shadow of a much more ancient alien civilization. The protagonist is an archaeologist and intellectual living in the … More Eight unusual science fiction plots
My computer has a problem. I can either send it in for repairs or try to fix it myself. If I send it in for repairs, it will definitely cost me 1 hour. If I try to fix it myself I’m not sure how long it will take. I decide to try to fix it … More On getting unlucky
My phone is protected by a 4-digit PIN. I’d like to make it hard for an attacker to read information from my phone without knowing the PIN. Unfortunately, there are only 10,000 4-digit PINs, so it won’t take long to guess the right one. What to do? The standard solution involves tamper-resistant hardware. A trusted … More Locking phones with quantum bits
Previously I’ve assumed that the search for extraterrestrial life (SETI) is irrelevant to altruists. On further reflection I think that’s probably right, but it’s not obvious as I’d assumed. In this post I’ll argue: If SETI rules out 50% of the possible places aliens could be, you shouldn’t conclude that searching the other 50% is a … More On SETI
Futurists have argued for years about whether the development of AGI will look more like a breakthrough within a small group (“fast takeoff”), or a continuous acceleration distributed across the broader economy or a large firm (“slow takeoff”). I currently think a slow takeoff is significantly more likely. This post explains some of my reasoning … More Takeoff speeds
Someone walking around stabbing people can cause a lot of damage before anyone stops them. That’s a bummer, but some technologies make the situation much worse. If we don’t want to ban dangerous technologies outright (because they have legitimate purposes, or because we really love guns), we could instead expand liability insurance requirements. In the case of … More Liability insurance
Technology may reach a point where free use of one person’s share of humanity’s resources is enough to easily destroy the world. I think society needs to make significant changes to cope with that scenario. Mass surveillance is a natural response, and sometimes people think of it as the only response. I find mass surveillance … More Surveil things, not people
Suppose that I’m setting up an AI project, call it NiceAI. I may want to assure my competitors that I abide by strong safety norms, or make other commitments about NiceAI’s behavior. This post presents one possible strategy for making such commitments credible. A realistic plan will be much more complicated and messy, and this … More Honest organizations
(ETA: I think this problem is impossible and in particular this mechanism is broken. Credit to Daniel Kane for pointing out the error. At least I did warn: “I feel pretty confused and this might all be wrong.”) Suppose Alice and Bob are both interested in a public good: maybe it’s a movie they want … More 10,000-way donation matching
(Reposted from Facebook, I would prefer put it here than have it lost to the sands of time.) My view of the future is strongly influenced by the history of economic output. I think it’s instructive to look at the sequence of doubling times—how long did it take economic output to double, and then how … More Hyperbolic growth
