bio
Dr. Totschnig is an assistant professor of philosophy at the Instituto de Humanidades of the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile. He received a Masters degree in musicology and philosophy from the Universität Wien (Austria) and a PhD in philosophy from Northwestern University.
title
"The Problem of Superintelligence: Political, not Technological"
abstract
The thinkers who have reflected on the problem of a coming superintelligence have generally seen the issue as a technological problem, a problem of how to control what the superintelligence will do (Yudkowsky 2001, 2008, 2011, 2012; Bostrom 2002, 2014; Omohundro 2008, 2012, 2016; Wallach and Allen 2009; Yampolskiy and Fox 2012, 2013). I argue that this approach is probably mistaken because it is based on questionable assumptions about the behavior of intelligent agents and, moreover, potentially counterproductive because it might, in the end, bring about the existential catastrophe that it is meant to prevent. I contend that the problem posed by a future superintelligence will likely be a political problem, that is, one of establishing a peaceful form of coexistence with other intelligent agents in a situation of mutual vulnerability, and not a technological problem of control.
