The core idea of ASI arriving before AGI seems to be true: we have already seen that through Chess Programs, LLMs etc.
However what caught my eye and that to me does reflect the lens through which the author sees the world, unless I am completely misunderstanding their point:
"Most of the world's important problems have never been modelled at the precision AI requires to act on them. Pollution, traffic, healthcare, taxation, public infrastructure, water distribution."
Pollution, traffic, healthcare and public infrastructure however are not really problems that require "clever" solutions - rather they are problems of political will, regulating industry and moving to cleaner energy sources. For example, we have known about human caused climate change for decades and carbon emissions are just hitting their peak now.
But are you arguing that when people believe things that are demonstrably false, like using bleach as a Covid remedy, not because there is any evidence behind them but only because they were uttered by someone they trust wholeheartedly, and this person does not have any hint of medical training, that nobody should say they are stupid, but only quietly believe it in their minds?
According to the article, such patents seem to come with a lot of restrictions and the patent apparently applies to traits of the patented plant:
When a company is granted a utility patent on a type of seed, it doesn’t just own the seed. It also owns its traits (color, texture, disease resistance, the way it was grown), future generations of that seed and all of the rights to research.
So, if a plant breeder like Morton develops his own variety of lettuce and the lettuce matches any of the traits of a patented variety – whether it be color, the curliness of the leaf or a trait that makes it conducive to a particular climate – the breeder is technically in violation of patent law and risks getting sued by the patent owner.
So according to the article, the patent system actually does place heavy restrictions on research in this area.
If somebody walks past a shop and does not buy the wares on offer because they are offended by the horrible decor, I assume, under this definition, this will be called coercion in that that they 'coercing' the owner to change the decor?
That seems like a horrible suggestion: That might work for one person but an entire country? That people who have lived their lives for generations in Ukraine simply uproot their entire lives, give whatever wealth they've built up and move to a different country where they speak a foreign language, have different cultures and customs, where they need to integrate and learn the language to have a chance at any semblance of a life. Sorry that sounds like a horrible idea.
So the argument is that since this criticism came from presumably a socialist, which we have no evidence for, we should not consider the criticism on its own merit?
However what caught my eye and that to me does reflect the lens through which the author sees the world, unless I am completely misunderstanding their point:
"Most of the world's important problems have never been modelled at the precision AI requires to act on them. Pollution, traffic, healthcare, taxation, public infrastructure, water distribution."
Pollution, traffic, healthcare and public infrastructure however are not really problems that require "clever" solutions - rather they are problems of political will, regulating industry and moving to cleaner energy sources. For example, we have known about human caused climate change for decades and carbon emissions are just hitting their peak now.