Book: 20221209 to 20230203, "What We Owe the Future" by MacAskill, William

20221209 - Introduction

The world is so complicated. Is it really possible to guide people toward the right direction?

Can we guide AlphaZero? AlphaZero follows some rules, so we just need to set up right rules.

For example, be tolerant to different opinions.

Part I. The Long View
20221211 - Chapter 1: The Case for Longtermism

We are not sure what we should do for long term benefit of human being. But there are something most likely good. For example, reduce the carbon emission, use sustainable energy to replace fossil energy, reduce pollution, be tolerant to different opinions, etc.

That's the right way to go. Longtermism is the reflection of the ultimate desire of our gene.

20221212 - Chapter 2: You Can Shape the Course of History

"Early plasticity, later rigidity". I think this is caused by MEME.

But new MEME replaces old MEME all the time.

We need to keep our mind open, so embrace the changing of MEME!

Part II. Trajectory Changes
20221224 - Chapter 3: Moral Change

Moral is part of Meme, which compete with each other. Surely it's also affected by environment and history.

What caused the abolition of slavery? I think industrial revolution is the foundation. That explained why slavery abolition started from British and France.

Slavery can only be used to do simple work. But modern machines needs advanced skill, and they are expensive. It's hard for slaves to learn how to operate machines, and it's easy for them to damage machines.

From the other end, machines improved the living standards of rich people. Put it in other words, machines are more productive than slaves. Then there is no reason to keep slavery, so people started to abolish it.

Then how about the 1977 book from Seymour Drescher "Econocide"? Economical factor is not the only factor. In my opinion, anti-discrimination (meme) was the major factor.

Are slaves human? Why Plato supported slavery? When we realized that slaves are human, and when most of the people become rich enough not being relied on slavery, we abolished slavery.

When would people throw away discrimination against slaves? When they get spare attention to think about the logic. If most of people are hungry and busy, they are not likely to think rationally. 

Revolutionary beliefs; cooperative behaviour. p73

This is the key for successful social progress. Evolution, not revolution.

20221226 - Chapter 4: Value Lock-In

Don't agree with the author here.

The major difference between AGI and human being, is that they live in different time field. AGI is at least one million times faster than human. It's more like the difference between human and plants. AGI doens't want to kill all human, just like we don't want to get rid of plants although we are capable of doing that.

I also don't believe that AGI has "value/opinion". What AGI does is based on the analysis result of big data. It doesn't stick to any meme.

MuZero and ChatGPT is still far, far away from AGI. MuZero was released in 2019. EfficientZero was released in 2021. ChatGPT was released in 2022. Elon Musk said that the real AGI can expand the boundary of perception of human. It's still 10+ years away.

What role is FSD and Dojo playing in developing AGI?

What value should we lock-in? The problem is not about choosing right values, but all about "lock-in". Lock-in means people believe they are right and then refuse changing. We should avoid lock-in any value. Instead, just be open to dissents, and admit that we might be wrong. When we have to judge, the judgement should be based on the first principle.

Charter city is really good idea. If people admit that they may be wrong, and they sometimes are ignorant, then they can adopt charter city experiment.

Part III. Safeguarding Civilization
20230108 - Chapter 5: Extinction

Nuclear war, bioweapon.

I don't believe they can kill everyone and destroy human civilization completely. But no doubt they might cause huge pain to everyone survived.

How to avoid extinction? Do something to mitigate the threat, and prepare Plan B.

I don't see any real threat in the next 50 years.

20230109 - Chapter 6: Collapse

90% percent of people may die in all-out nuclear war or biological disaster, but civilization won't collapse completely.

However, I agree with author that we should keep fossil fuel to deal with the potential industrial recovery after civilization collapse.

Solar panel, wind turbine and lithium battery are not easy to build. Burning fossil fuel, especially coal to get energy is much easier. The front cost and difficulties of sustainable energy is quite high.

For a normal steel plant to switch to solar power and lithium battery, it needs 4.5GW power, so needs 4.5*24=108 GWH power everyday, that needs 27000 MEGAPACK, which is around $108B. Plus all other cost, it could be $120B for a normal green steel plant! To build a traditional steel mill, it only needs around $1B.

When temperature goes up 8 Celsius Degree, cirrocumulus clouds would burn out, which make the temperature goes up an extra 7 degree. Then, because water vapor is also green gas, if there is more water in air, it leads to higher temperature. So, what's the worst case? Maybe 20 Celsius degree. Many people may move to Greenland and Antarctica. But the long winter there may last more then 6 months, which is disaster to agriculture.

Yes, civilization will survive, but our life standards will drop off the cliff.

20230111 - Chapter 7: Stagnation

Technical progress always pick up the low-hanging fruit first. But we have AI now.

Computer and Internet improved our productivity thousands of times, AI, such as ChatGPT from OpenAI, gives everyone high quality assistants. It is quite possible that by the end of this century we will have AGI. Are we still going into stagnation even with the help of AGI/ASI? Maybe, but that doesn't matter.

Can we rely on technical progress to improve our future? Destruction is always easier than construction. So more advanced technology may accelerate our extinction. However, solar power is more peaceful than nuclear power, and it needs more advanced technology if we want to lower the cost to replace fossil fuel.

Is stagnation always bad? Preindustrial age may last forever. Is it possible that at some stage, it's better to stuck there, than keep going forward? The more we understanding about gene, the more likely we can cure all lethal diseases, and the more likely some man-made germ leads to human's extinction.

To some extent, more advanced technology is more dangerous.

Part IV. Assessing the End of the World
20230122 - Chapter 8: Is It Good to Make Happy People?

The question is much easier to answer based the theory from "The Selfish Gene". The one which helps gene survive and grow is good.

20230123 - Chapter 9: Will the Future Be Good or Bad?

The future of average people is getting better.

As for animals, I believe this should also be measured by gene. Domesticated animals suffer a lot, but the number of their gene is going.

Gene doesn't care about whether their host suffer, it just want to survive and grow in number. That's why we want to help each other, and why we want everyone to get better life.

I am optimistic about the future. If the future is bad, surely population would shrink quickly. Machines/computers/AI is far more efficient than human in making goods and services. Rich and Powerful people don't need to force other people to work for them, and it only takes a relatively small percentage of resources to give all other people decent living condition.

Part V. Taking Action
20230203 - Chapter 10: What to Do

These three lessons - take robustly good actions, build up options, and learn more - can help guide us in our attempts to positively influence the long term. p226

I think we should ignore the first one, as it is seen as common sense by everyone. But everyone has their own definition of "robustly good".

The second one is critical. It means diversity, which means be tolerant of different or even wrong opinions.

The third one needs to be based on the first principle. We need to minimize the restriction from our own narratives.

What can normal people do to help? The author William MacAskill recommends donations, political activism(such as voting), spreading good ideas and having children. p233

I think the most important thing is to be tolerant to "bad" ideas and opinions. That increases diversity of our thoughts and keep our mind open. Then, eventually, there will be more donation, more political activism, more good ideas and more children.

The "learn more, build options, do good" framework is generally useful for anyone deciding what to do with their career. p239

Also need to consider bar-bell strategy ("Antifragile"), the cost of time and compound effect.