Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Robin Hanson - Beware cultural drift

Robin Hanson has become interested in cultural evolution in 2024. He read Not By Genes Alone, The Secret of our Success, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking - and a number of other books on the topic. He has also made some blog posts and videos in the area. Here's a recent video on the topic:

My picture seems significantly different from Robin's. I see meme reproduction at the expense of gene reproduction - likely followed by a machine takeover. I do not forsee innovation grinding to a halt - instead intelligent machines will promote innovation. Robots will become the main consumers. The economy is unlikely to go into decline. The Amish are irrelevant - their rise is too slow to make a difference. We didn't break civilization and civilization is unlikely to collapse. I suspect that the basic problem is that Robin's timelines for the development of machine intelligence are too long.

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