When one paid worker appears or disappears in a community, it causes what economists call a “multiplier effect”. This has historically been estimated at 5 times the salary of the worker. Here’s how it works:…
In movies such as The Terminator, The Matrix and so forth, self-aware AIs come into existence and soon threaten humanity. This thinking is reflected in the arguments by Musk, Hawking and others against creating strong…
In this world, however much we might wish it otherwise, there is no perfection to be found. Every beautiful thing has its limitations or deficiencies. Even mathematics has Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems. So, too, must a…
Those of us who are old enough will remember the 1950s, when “Japanese import” meant balsa wood trinkets. Several decades later, the first Japanese cars started appearing in the US. They were widely derided as…
Psychologists have noted that many people, when presented with evidence that contradicts a belief of theirs, simply ignore or rationalize away that evidence, holding even more tightly to their existing beliefs. If we are to…
I expect that the US government has already figured out how to end much of the world’s terrorism in the next several decades. This opinion is based on the following facts: 1. Drone strikes are…
Imagine, if you will, aliens exploring Earth. They visit a chess tournament. They see rows upon rows of players, hunched over chess boards, facing each other. Silence prevails, but it is an intense silence. The…
In the book, I spend a fair amount of time examining important aspects of society that appear inverted from their optimum functioning. However, my perspective may not have been broad enough. I recently learned that…
We’ve been giving all of our attention to the crisis automation poses for HUMAN workers. But what about cats? They have many jobs, too: Greeter Bookends Footwarmers Relaxation appliances (purring) Seat warmer Masseuse (kneading with…
The AI researcher Jurgen Schmidhuber has argued in a talk that there is a precise way to optimize a self-improving superintelligence based upon Godel’s mathematics. He further explained this in a paper audaciously named “Formal…