In my continuing conversation with Bryan Caplan on my book, he had questions for me (on my moral evaluations), and now I have questions for him. My main claim of expertise for the book is that I have taken a particular future tech scenario and analyzed its social consequences, by applying simple standard theories from many academic disciplines. (As we don’t have data on the future, theory drawn from prior data is all we have to go on.) Regarding that claim, I don’t want to be judged (much) on how likely you think is my scenario or what value you place on it. Instead, I want to be judged on the scope and accuracy of my forecasts, relative to this consensus academic theory standard.
Note for Bryan: getting old sucks. I don't believe Robin's estimates of AI timing vs uploads, but there is definitely a time in a human life where the importance of a vigorous intelligent agent who truly understands your ideas, can continue your projects, and will preserve what you value is worth more to a human being than one more day of pain and diminished capacity.Prediction: uploads will be more likely to be childless persons than population ratios would otherwise predict.
An economist who reviewed the book on Amazon makes a specific criticism of your argument predicting huge cities: you don't show what benefits agglomeration provides in em society: https://www.amazon.com/revi...
Note for Bryan: getting old sucks. I don't believe Robin's estimates of AI timing vs uploads, but there is definitely a time in a human life where the importance of a vigorous intelligent agent who truly understands your ideas, can continue your projects, and will preserve what you value is worth more to a human being than one more day of pain and diminished capacity.Prediction: uploads will be more likely to be childless persons than population ratios would otherwise predict.
An economist who reviewed the book on Amazon makes a specific criticism of your argument predicting huge cities: you don't show what benefits agglomeration provides in em society: https://www.amazon.com/revi...