What If Everything Changed? | Robin Hanson | TEDxNorrköping

Whar may happen when the first truly smart robots appear, based on brain emulations or ems. Scan a human brain, then run a model with the same connections on a fast computer, and you have a robot brain, but recognizably human.

Train them to do some job and copy it a million times: an army of workers is at your disposal. When they can be made cheaply,
within perhaps a century, they will displace humans in most jobs.
In this new economic era, the world economy may double in size every few weeks.
Applying decades of expertise in physics, computer science, and economics,
and use ofstandard theories indicate a detailed picture of a world dominated by ems.

Associate Professor of Economics, and received his Ph.D in 1997 in social sciences from Caltech. Joined George Mason's economics faculty in 1999 after completing a two year post-doc at U.C Berkely. His major fields of interest include health policy, regulation, and formal political theory. Recent book: The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When Robots Rule The Earth. Oxford University Press, 2016.

[brianferguson]

Shame this doesn't have more views, people need to see this.

[Chris.Davies]

Robin - has a wonderful mind - and his concept of Grabby Aliens is decent, I think.

And he is right that Virtual humans are coming, but totally wrong about the nature of the virtual world and virtual humans. He has only thought about human minds as being static and non-upgradable. That is against everything we know about humans.

Humans have a very great desire to improve themselves, and with a "physical world" in the virtual world which has no real meaning, the way virtuals will rank themselves is by the number of attention spans they can maintain, and for how long? They will be rated by something called The Veracity Engine - which is not human, but is not an entity.

Ultimately it will come down to how hard a virtual person works on themselves, and what upgrade path they choose to go down. There can never be copies of a virtual. You can't have any legal recourse in such a situation, and so copies are the ultimate crime, and punishable by permadeath for everyone involved.

The future of humanity is very strange indeed, and our definition of human will change substantially - but there's no real AI in our future - just Virtual Humans. Humans are not smart enough to make a mind - but we can lean to virtualise our own, under very strict circumstances.

Ultimately of course, Virtual people will learn how to have virtual children, combining their own traits into a new, and blank mind - which needs to be nurtured and raised a little bit like a human child, but not really.

And Virtual worlds may explain the Fermi Paradox. How about it, Robin?

[stephaniewilder]

Super sharp guy, I'd love to have coffee with him. He desperately needs a voice coach to help him with public speaking.

[Chris.Davies]

I am terribly sorry to inform you, Robin, that you are wrong in a few ways. Humans will write laws about virtual humans - a subject I have given a great deal of thought to. There can never be more than one version of a mind active at any time. This is for legal reasons. No entity can ever be more than one individual. The law will not allow it - and permadeath is the punishment for ALL copies (and originals) and all who partook in the crime - in all locations, and at all times. It is far mroe serious than murder - and it is the ultimate crime.

If your mind is scanned, then the last part of the process, after testing the upload, and before making it conscious, is to destroy the human mind totally - leaving a dead human body who was Mr.X.
Subsequently, the Virtual Mr. X is switched on, and their consciousness awakens in the virtual world. And this new virtual entity has no legal claim on the estate of the person whose mind was uploaded. That human being is now dead, and all their worldly goods get passed along to their human descendants. You can't take it with you!

You are "born" into the virtual world with nothing but your residual self image, your memories and knowledge - but with a massive potential to change. And you start changing from the first instant you are awakened. But there will never be another copy of you running. Your daily backup isn't a copy, and can't be made conscious - it can only be used to recreate your consciousness using a special and strictly controlled process.

And so, there is no way you can have 17, 000, 000 Einstein's working for you, sorry. Not even two Einstein's.

But, you can have a genius work for you such that they may be able to complete 6 months worth of work in an afternoon, as they overclock their mind to Machine Time - which is like being in solitary confinement but with all the materials you need to complete the job. Acquiring a missing piece of information in machine time might take months in machine time, while it's microseconds in the real world.

So, we still can advance at an ungodly rate you predict - but not in the way you think.

If you believe otherwise, you don't really understand humans, and what they will and won't accept. We are human, and we require there only ever be one version of a mind. But once that mind is uploaded, you are free to do whatever you want with it. You can buy upgrades of all kinds, and acquire abilities at a prodigious rate.

I imagine that the real world still holds appeal however, (The Virtual World is also strictly controlled, but with amazing freedoms we don't have in the real world) and that virtuals will inhabit both worlds - by the use of perfect telepresence in android bodies. The richest of virtual people will even be able to afford to have their own dedicated android body for real world use.

[andreassarris]

I just can't follow him. I need to slow down, pause, take notes, think and then think about what I've thought, take more notes, read so I can fill the gaps in my understanding, give up, come back and re-listen and then start the whole cycle again.

[modolief]

Another video demonstrating that our cleverness outstrips our wisdom and compassion. Come back to me up when we can solve police violence or racial hatred, then technology like this might interest me.

[EastwardTraveller]

"Whar may happen when the first truly smart robots appear" interesting typo. War may indeed happen when superintelligent systems begin implementing their goals in real world. Best to simulate myriad trajectories so the broadest spectrum of understanding is achieved for the available resources.

[silverspawn]

I'm baffled by the prediction that they would be more religious.

[slutfaces]

Yes, I, "don't like it." And I say we DO SOMETHING TO STOP IT.

[famousdrscanlon]

Energy is ultimately at the root of the economy, all life, complex systems & the entire universe except for the 'science' of economics. Unless their is a real energy revolution (not yet invented), no grand techno future will ever happen. I liked 'Elephant In the Brain', but Hanson's economic 101 schooling/religion has deluded him into treating energy the same as any other commodity. It's not. Give me control of the oil & I'll rule the world. Compare the amount of work $100 of oil gets you vs $100 of wheat or meat. -- 1 Barrel of Oil = 5, 800, 000 BTUs. 1 Gallon of Gas = 125, 000 BTUs. 1 Barrel of Oil thus contains the energy contained in 46.4 gallons of gas (5, 800, 000 divided by 125, 000 = 46.4 ). 1 Gallon of Gas = 500 hours of human work output. 1 Barrel of Oil = 23, 200 Hours of Human Work Output. (Energy equivalent of 46.4 gallons of gas per barrel of oil x 500 hours of human work output per gallon of gas = 23, 2000 hours).