From Twitter
What actually happened:
EAs realized the far future was the most important thing, but the far future is hard to predict or influence—except that extinction is ultrabad for the far future, and we can always work to prevent it right now.
But we CAN influence 100s of year away..🧵
---
RT @ESYudkowsky
via Dank EA Memes
https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1621896459523346433
From Twitter
Using path dependence.
Do we use the QWERTY keyboard because it's a great design for a keyboard? No. It's because it became popular and the popularity stuck.
(I don't use QWERTY, but that's another story https://millikeys.sourceforge.net/asset/)
From Twitter
Even dumber, today's "ergonomic" keyboards use an unergonomic keyboard misalignment that was needed for type bars that no longer exist.
So the way you improve the future is by identifying path dependencies early and change their course before they are set in stone.
From Twitter
That's why I instantly viewed WebAssembly as the most important technology of the century when it was announced in 2015 and hopped on board the community group — only to have precisely zero influence there.
(AGI would be more important, but I didn't realize the danger then)
