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Hypersonic missiles are An example of a possible game changing weapon.
Hypersonic missiles are An example of a possible game changing weapon.
A Singleton is a world order in which there is a single decision-making agency at the highest level. See https://nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton.html for a succinct summary, and some analysis of possible pros and cons.
Let's assume extraordinary technological breakthroughs that may cause one entity (a state or a financial company) to have massive economic dominance (say: slow AI takeoff, free energy from fusion reactors, advanced nanotech) or massive offensive dominance (cyber-warfare capabilities, undetectable nuclear weapons, DNA-targeted bioweapons). In this case, that entity may decide to claim power over civilization.
Considering that it is possible that a singleton is unavoidable, and that it may be easy to remain locked in to such a governance, it is of obvious importance to the future of humanity.
The main idea I want to bring out in this post is that the formation of a singleton in the near future is perhaps likely (even without strong AI or a great power war), and I'd like to see further discussion on this topic.
When you use the term "babbling", do you mean it in the sense of this post?
An excerpt:
Actually, it is from Robin Hanson, encountered recently when reading this interesting post from someone who recreated GPT2 and considered publishing the result :)