Lifeboat Foundation, one of the most important organizations of the early 21st century, was recently mentioned briefly in the Wall Street Journal article “Colonize the Moon” (subscription required) by our Scientific Advisory Board member William E. Burroughs. Burroughs proposes using the Moon as a backup drive for civilization. His organization, known as ARC, was absorbed into Lifeboat not too long ago. By working together, we’ll have a better chance of achieving our goal - ensuring that the human species survives these crucial next decades. Here is the relevant excerpt from the article:

It was for that reason that a few individuals, myself included, started a group called the Alliance to Rescue Civilization (ARC) several years ago. Its purpose was to start an archive on the moon that would be a continuously updated international record of our civilization. That way, if a major catastrophe happens, the record would survive. Keeping a record on the moon (and perhaps at one of the poles on this planet) would be like backing up a computer’s hard drive. We would emerge from the chaos knowing who we are in the fullest sense of the term.

ARC has been absorbed by the Lifeboat Foundation, a group of likeminded people who are trying to make certain that we can survive a truly awful world-wide occurrence. They are emphatically not doomsday types. But they understand that while no skipper goes to sea thinking the boat will sink, they nonetheless carry life preservers and dinghies. That, after all, is only prudent. So is starting a self-sufficient colony on the moon.

I repeat: we are emphatically not doomsday types! ;) I would love nothing more than to partake of all the ambrosia the Spike will offer, giving orders to my AI genie and hanging out in my expansive VR paradise-world. However, this favorable scenario is contingent on whether or not we can dodge the numerous bullets filling the magazine of the gun called existential risk. That gun has to be fired by someone willing to pull the trigger - although they most likely would not anticipate the consequences of their actions. A scholar once wrote:

All else being equal, not many people would prefer to destroy the world. Even faceless corporations, meddling governments, reckless scientists, and other agents of doom, require a world in which to achieve their goals of profit, order, tenure, or other villanies. If our extinctions proceeds slowly enough to allow a moment of horrified realization, the doers of the deed will likely by taken aback on realizing that they have actually destroyed the world. Therefore I suggest that if the Earth is destroyed, it will probably be by mistake.

That mistake will happen when some reckless engineer builds a mind they can no longer control. Not that “control” is the critical factor - it’s not. Not the way it is with humans interacting with other humans, anyway. The challenge is one of creation, not control. We have to create something that can acquire wisdom and displays unconditional benevolence to all mankind. The original idea was to tweak some human to produce that outcome, but the prospects for that avenue look bad. The true power is in the convenient nonbiological medium. Learning and intelligence are not just abstract philosophical ideas. They correspond to real math. Different varieties of learning and intelligence use different weightings in their equations. We have to make an equation that is weighted to care about us, and rewrites itself in ways that improve the quality of that care, without getting in our way.

Keep in mind that freezing progress in computing would be one way to buy time. Accelerating the researchers may be less invasive on society, but is, in general, dubious.