{"id":22,"date":"2005-10-25T13:52:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-25T13:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=22"},"modified":"2005-10-25T13:52:00","modified_gmt":"2005-10-25T13:52:00","slug":"missing-the-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=22","title":{"rendered":"Missing the boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I got an email from Eric Klien of the Lifeboat Foundation<\/a>, an organization that advocates building a “space ark” as an insurance policy in case out-of-control nanorobots destroy all life on Earth. Klien was inviting me to join the foundation’s scientific advisory board<\/a>, which includes such notables as Ray Kurzweil<\/a>. I thought readers of this blog might be interested in my response.<\/p>\n

Dear Eric,<\/p>\n

I’m honored (and surprised) that you would consider me for your board. But I’m afraid I’m going to decline, for the following reasons:<\/p>\n

(1) I’m generally skeptical of predictions about specific future technologies, especially when those predictions are exactly the sort of thing that a science fiction writer would imagine. In particular, I consider the risk of self-replicating nanobots converting our entire planet into gray goo to be a small one.<\/p>\n

(2) Once we’re dealing with such unlikely events, I don’t think we can say with confidence what protective measures would be effective. For all we know, any measures we undertake will actually increase<\/em> the risk of catastrophe. For example, maybe if humanity launches a space ark, that will tip off a hostile alien civilization to our existence. And maybe the Earth will then be besieged by alien warships, which can only be destroyed using gray goo — the development of which was outlawed as a protective measure. I’m not claiming that this scenario is likely, only that I have no idea whether it’s more or less likely than the scenarios you’re considering.<\/p>\n

(3) There are several risks to humanity that I consider more pressing than that of nanotechnology run amok. These include climate change, the loss of forests and freshwater supplies, and nuclear proliferation.<\/p>\n

Best regards,
\nScott Aaronson<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I got an email from Eric Klien of the Lifeboat Foundation, an organization that advocates building a “space ark” as an insurance policy in case out-of-control nanorobots destroy all life on Earth. Klien was inviting me to join the foundation’s scientific advisory board, which includes such notables as Ray Kurzweil. I thought readers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rage-against-doofosity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}