In 30 seconds
Physicist David Deutsch argues that human endeavors are fallible enough to destroy an entire culture. He says the nature of an AGI program remains a problem to solve, and offers a stark prediction about a civilization that remains dynamic for a million years.
- 1Fallibility has no upper boundDeutsch says human errors can be large enough to destroy an entire culture, something he says has happened many times in history.
- 2The AGI questionHe argues that we need to discover what kind of program an AGI is, and claims no one is working on that question.
- 3A million-year horizonHe predicts that a dynamic human civilization surviving for a million years will have conquered the galaxy; otherwise, he says, humanity will almost certainly be extinct.
Takeaways
- Human error can be large enough to destroy a culture.
- Deutsch sees understanding what kind of program an AGI is as an unsolved problem.
- He predicts that a civilization remaining dynamic for a million years would conquer the galaxy; otherwise humanity would almost certainly be extinct.
Read the edited text by chapter
Fallibility, AGI, and civilization
Deutsch moves from the scale of human error to the unresolved question of AGI. He closes with a prediction about the long-term future of a dynamic civilization.
David Deutsch says the whole process is fallible: there is no upper limit to the size of the errors people can make. An error can destroy an entire culture, something he says has happened many times in human history.
Deutsch argues that we need to find out what kind of program an artificial general intelligence is. That, he says, is the problem that needs solving, and he claims no one is working on it.
Looking a million years ahead, Deutsch predicts that if humanity survives in a society that does not become static, it will definitely have conquered the galaxy. If it fails to maintain that kind of society for the next million years, he says, humanity will almost certainly be extinct.
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