(Roughly) 100 Questions I have

SPARC

This was a part of the SPARC (Summer Program in Applied Rationality and Cognition) application I recently filled out. The question simply asked to list 100 questions that interest you. I expected this to take about an hour but in reality, it was almost three hours of thinking. Because of this, I believe that this list contains all the specific questions I have on the specific topics listed below, which is pretty cool. Hopefully, I can look back on this in a few years to see a. how I have changed, b. if any answers are now available. I also have no clue how “unique” most of my questions are, but any question that includes a sentence to add context is probably pretty unique to me.

Edit March 4 2023: After submitting this I saw the responses of someone else and realized that the questions I wrote were biased to include only questions I thought were relevant to sparc. So these 100 questions are only a subset of the true list of questions I have.

Biology and CRISPR

1. So far we have been cautious about developing ethical standards behind using CRISPR while also developing the technology. When we get these two ideas “mature”, what will the ethics and capabilities of CRISPR be?

2. Will we ever be able to conclusively “prove” a psychological theory?

   1. Or is psychology research limited to assumptions at the core?

3. How will our ethical standards for CRISPR limit or push forward the technology?

4. A few years ago a deaf couple used IVF to specifically select for a child who would be deaf. So for CRISPR, how will we, societally, define abilities and disabilities?

5. Does an unborn child have any “say” in what their parents choose for their genes?

   1. Does this still apply for changes that are considered by a majority of people to be enhancements?

6. Is CRISPR a key to allowing humans to colonize the solar system and beyond?

7. Assuming CRISPR becomes widely used in germline editing, what politics will form from different groups of humans with different CRISPR traits?

8. How quickly would we be able to find subtle catastrophic issues with a CRISPR edit we made?

   1. Can we do so quick enough to avoid huge issues in entire generations?

   2. If we can not reliably accomplish this, will it ever be ethical to apply CRISPR in germline editing?

9. Will the biohacking community advance CRISPR into the general population before more traditional scientists do?

   1. Is this safe?

10. There are legends of polynesian navigators remembering vast quantities of information over weeks in order to navigate by dead reckoning. They accomplished this without written language. What human “abilities” have we lost out on because of advancements such as language or even industrialization?

11. Will we ever be advanced enough or ever need to design a lifeform from scratch?

    1. If this lifeform becomes sentient, is it AI because we designed it?

12. Can a specific CRISPR edit be copyrighted?

13. Could the right to access to gene editing be a basic right in the future?

14. Is it unethical for a parent to edit their child’s genes in a way that limits the chance they face discrimination?

    1. Does this situation change if this single decision is considered among the many other people making similar decisions? (In particular, with the risks of “homogenization”).

15. Can every quirk or “feature” of humanity really be traced to evolution?

16. Are humans undergoing any sort of non-cosmetic evolution now that survival is relatively easier?

17. Is human gene editing really unnatural? (More from a political perspective).

18. Can animals be considered intelligent for the “technologies” they have “developed” through evolution? (IE bees using hexagons or bird’s navigation abilities)

19. If the answer to the above question is no, what about human intelligence?

20. How can we solve vaccine hesitancy?

21. If CRISPR was theoretically available over the counter, should it be available that easily?

22. Should we track what gene edits are occuring, especially trends in them?

    1. If so, how can we do so while maintaining individual privacy?

23. How could we use gene editing tracking to protect against threats from gene editing?

24. If cryonics becomes possible in the future, will the people in that future consider it a priority?

25. Would someone from the 1500s (etc.) be able to adjust to living in today?

    1. Would someone from today be able to adjust living in the future? (Considering that now we are “aware” of the rate at which we can explode in technological abilities).

Space and Aliens

1. If we do discover aliens, how different will they be from us?

2. What will be the first year when astronauts become equivalent to people riding planes in 2023?

3. How would our technological advancement change if we made a space elevator or space “slingshot”?

4. Is our assumption that civilizations expand really true?

5. Assuming there are multiple intelligent alien civilizations, is it more common for planets to be made up of multiple “countries” or one unified group?

   1. What different historical, social, etc. paths would lead to these two very different scenarios?

6. Assuming intelligent alien civilizations, what knowledge do aliens have about Earth?

7. How much do aliens with knowledge about Earth care about Earth?

   1. How much do they care about humans specifically and humanity’s future?

8. What is the solution to the Fermi paradox?

9. Can we really make arguments about the Fermi paradox if we have explored so little of the universe?

10. If we are actually the only civilization in the universe, are we the first or the last?

11. Would an alien civilization consider our cities or other groups of humans as living organisms?

12. What was Oumuamua?

13. What is the explanation for dark energy?

    1. Could we “harness” it if we fully understand it?

14. With companies such as SpaceX focussing so heavily on colonization, as opposed to government agencies, how will government and private enterprise interact when colonization on other planets/bodies begins?

15. What properties of life are necessarily conserved between any life from in the universe?

16. Wormholes are apparently theoretically possible, will they be our solution to faster-than-light travel?

17. Assuming near-light-speed travel is possible, will there ever be companies or groups focussed on using the time dilation properties (and not the travel possibilities)?

    1. As in, a company that allows you to “travel” into the future.

18. Where there any intelligent civilizations in Earth’s past that we do not know of? (non-human or human).

19. Assuming intelligent aliens exist, who will initiate first-contact, us or the aliens?

    1. Could the answer to this question be important in long-term relations, whether peaceful or not?

AI and AGI

1. ChatGPT has started a battle for AI supremacy. Will businesses push AI to dangerous levels in a chase for its monetary potential or will AGI be developed in a coordinated, safer, way?

2. Is there something fundamental to consciousness that AGI must have?

3. Is it really true that an AGI would be so different from humans that a paperclip maximizer situation is to be expected?

4. Is there something AGI will never be able to replicate, necessitating humans to always need to work with the AGI, no matter how superintelligent?

5. Will our current rate of AI development outpace the work being done on AI alignment, especially considering the factors from ChatGPT starting a race?

6. Will AI generated art/music/movies ever be so well accepted that people prefer them to human produced content?

7. If we become reliant on AGI for everything, what will we do as a species?

8. Currently AI’s are built from huge sets of data. Will AGI be made the same way or does AGI require something more than just a huge set of data?

9. If AGI can be built from data, how will we remove the biases we have?

10. Who will be allowed to access AGI?

    1. How will this affect both its use and its effects?

11. If we somehow became completely sure that we could not ever make an AGI (for some technological reason), how would AI research and our ideas on the future change?

12. What would we do if we somehow became completely sure that we could not align AI?

13. Can AGI “solve” any philosophical questions for us?

    1. Can it solve AI’s own philosophical questions?

14. How will AI’s such as alpha-fold change science in the long-run?

    1. Can an AI win a Nobel? (Does this even matter as a measurement?)

15. Has Deepmind set a precedent for opening the solutions of AI (such as alpha-fold) to everyone?

16. Can Deepmind capture the same public interest as OpenAI?

    1. If not, how might that affect the safe development of AGI?

Chemistry

1. Many of the molecules we use originate from petroleum, how will we transition to other methods to produce synthetic chemicals?

2. When will nanotechnology be precise enough to work at the scale of atoms?

3. When will this nanotech be so advanced that any molecule we want can be made by taking raw elements?

4. What implications does this have for our chemical industry, especially considering synthesis?

5. Would such a technology change organic chemistry education, as many reactions and concepts could be rendered obsolete?

6. Where is the line between physics and chemistry? (I need to settle some debates about PV=nRT!)

7. Why do I feel organic chemistry is so “elegant”?

   1. What does it even mean for me to even think orgo is elegant?

8. Is it necessary that science be elegant for it to make sense?

9. Can there ever be a theory in chemistry that accounts the many exceptions?

   1. How does this factor into the “elegance” questions?

10. When will carbon nanotubes be as ubiquitous as plastics are today?

11. When and where will we reach the end of the periodic table?

Technology and general Science/Math

1. What if the Riemann hypothesis is actually disproved?

2. What scientific discoveries are we missing out on because today’s scientists are necessarily forced to deeply specialize (as compared to the polymaths of previous generations)?

3. If we aggregate all the tiny errors from the approximations we make in physics, engineering, and beyond, what percent error will we have? (Would need to combine all “measurements” into one measurement for comparisons).

4. Does the universe operate on a fundamental numbering system (IE binary or hexadecimal)?

   1. If this is true, what implications does this have for the universe being a simulation?

5. Some consider the scientific method to be an invention specific to Western culture, and believe we are missing out on advances that do not follow this Western philosophy, is this true?

   1. If so, what advancements have we missed?

6. Is something such as the scientific method really “western philosophy”, or is it basic enough to be considered universal?

7. Will fusion actually be adopted if it becomes viable?

8. Can fusion ever be downsized to ironman levels?

9. What transformative medicines/molecules/materials are hidden in rainforests and the ocean?

10. What is the most “magic” technology we possess (from the perspective of both humans and an “outside observer”)?

Questions that are harder to categorize

1. Is Gödel’s loophole real?

   1. If so, what is it?

2. What will the “final form” of social medias be?

3. Will a “metaverse” actually happen in our lifetimes?

4. Right now, we consider 3-dimensions to be the smallest number of dimensions in which life could exist. Is that true for beings of higher dimensions? (In other words, does a being living in a “100 dimension world” believe life can exist in 99 dimensions or less?)

5. How would my life be different if one small thing before I was born was changed?

   1. Is there an “average” amount of change from all the tiny and large factors that could have been different?

6. What assumptions am I making that influence the way I approach every day?

   1. Should I change these assumptions?

7. Will humans be able to adapt a solution that’s better than mutually assured destruction?

   1. How will this relate with global unification? (Will it cause it or be caused by it?)

8. Assuming we fully “solve” climate change, will we as a species “rest” or will we socially start looking into other existential risks?

9. Will we move past the idea that an economy must always grow to be successful?

10. Will the view that future humans are just as important to consider in today’s decisions ever become a noted subject in public discourse?

11. How do we account for digital humans, both in counting how many humans there could be and in philosophical questions pertaining to humanity?

12. If someone’s entire consciousness is put onto a computer and perfectly emulates the original person, is it the same person?

    1. Even if it is the same person, is this an AI?

Less “serious” questions

1. Swimming is wildly inefficient compared to running, but training is improving, will there ever be a swimmer just as fast as an average runner?

2. How many people are doing [X] specific activity right now at this moment? (There are many X, all with varying specificity and ridiculousness.)

3. How knowledgeable will high school students (of all ranges of academic ability) be in fifty years compared to today?

4. All of the high school science olympiads (AMCs, Chem Olympiad, etc) have been increasing in difficulty every year. How difficult will these tests be in fifty years (given that they still exist)?

5. How would the Harry Potter story be different if he was sorted in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor?

6. Many have pointed out that Marvel is facing a problem with increasing the stakes of its movies (it’s hard to have higher stakes than half of the universe!), how will this affect their movies in the future?

   1. Will superhero movies become split into multiverses to allow the above problem to be fixed?

7. What are things we consider normal right now that will be crazy in 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years?

8. How many uses does a brick have?

   1. Can we ever be sure that we have listed all of them?

9. Where would humanity be if procrastination was minimized?

   1. What advancements would we lose if procrastination had been fully eliminated?