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Notes -
SMBC gets this close.
I've been thinking about the Grossman-Stiglitz Paradox recently. From the Wiki, it
That is, if everyone is already essentially omniscient, then there's no real payoff to investing in information. I was even already thinking about AI and warfare. The classical theory is that, in order to have war, one must have both a substantive disagreement and a bargaining friction. SMBC invokes two such bargaining frictions, both in terms of limited information - uncertainty involved in a power rising and the intentional concealment of strength.
Of course, SMBC does not seem to properly embrace the widely-held prediction that AI is going to become essentially omniscient. This is somewhat of a side prediction of the main prediction that it will be a nearly perfectly efficient executor. The typical analogy given for how perfectly efficient it will be as an executor, especially in comparison to humans, is to think about chess engines playing against Magnus Carlsen. The former is just so unthinkably better than the latter that it is effectively hopeless; the AI is effectively a perfect executor compared to us.
As such, there can be no such thing as a "rising power" that the AI does not understand. There can be no such thing as a human country concealing its strength from the AI. Even if we tried to implement a system that created fog of war chess, the perfect AI will simply hack the program and steal the information, if it is so valuable. Certainly, there is nothing we can do to prevent it from getting the valuable information it desires.
So maybe, some people might think, it will be omniscient AIs vs omniscient AIs. But, uh, we can just look at the Top Chess Engine Competition. They intentionally choose only starting positions that are biased enough toward one side or the other in order to get some decisive results, rather than having essentially all draws. Humans aren't going to be able to do that. The omniscient AIs will be able to plan everything out so far, so perfectly, that they will simply know what the result will be. Not necessarily all draws, but they'll know the expected outcome of war. And they'll know the costs. And they'll have no bargaining frictions in terms of uncertainties. After watching enough William Spaniel, this implies bargains and settlements everywhere.
Isn't the inevitable conclusion that we've got ourselves a good ol' fashioned paradox? Omniscient AI sure seems like it will, indeed, end war.
Omniscience, though, is a really high bar. The SMBC was positing only a rational AI, not an omniscient one.
I don't expect AI to become omniscient. The inherent problem in actually modeling the real world well enough to predict it perfectly, faster than events play out, particularly when said real world contains other equally-powerful modelers, seems likely to be unsolvable. Further, even if you could do that, you'd need perfect information on the initial conditions, which there's no way to get.
I think you're doing the thing where you haven't internalized "the thing". From Scott:
Hedge funds already have some of the best weather models in the world. There's alpha there right now. Or at least there was; I don't know how much has been anti-inducted away. The god AI will certainly be able to do at least as well. It will probably make our current best models look like a mere Magnus Carlsen. And if there's alpha in taking a more minute view, scoping the model in to a particular stadium, why can't it do that? Where there is alpha in the AI getting information, the AI will go there and get the information. It will be able to massively reduce the error bars. And all you need to get rid of war is reduce the error bars enough to get to a negotiated agreement. There's tons of alpha there, so there they will go. Until that alpha has been anti-inducted away, and we're right back in the paradox.
All this is at the "suppose" level. Yes, the god AI will be able to do this. IF it exists. I say the god AI will not exist.
It's an AI, a brain in a box. Even if it's really fucking smart, it has no advantage over us meat-brains in going places and getting information.
Agreed, at least until the prices of solar panels and drones drop by a factor of 10-100.
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