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====== Possible Empirical Investigations ======

// Published 25 February, 2015; last updated 12 January, 2021 //

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<p>In the course of our work, we have noticed a number of empirical questions which bear on our forecasts and might be (relatively) cheap to resolve. In the future we hope to address some of these.</p>
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<li><div class="li">
<a href="/doku.php?id=featured_articles:research_topic_hardware_software_and_ai" title="Research topic: Hardware, software and AI">Our partial list of investigations into forecasting AI timelines</a>
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<li><div class="li">
<a href="/doku.php?id=featured_articles:list_of_multipolar_research_projects" title="List of multipolar research projects">Our list of investigations that bear on ‘multipolar’ AI scenarios</a>
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<li><div class="li">Look at the work of ancient or enlightenment mathematicians and control for possible selection effects in <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/aiimpactslibrary/resolutions-of-mathematical-conjectures">this analysis</a> of historical mathematical conjectures.
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<li><div class="li">Look for historical characterizations of the AI problem, and try to obtain unbiased (though uninformed) breakdowns of the problem which could be used to gauge progress.</div></li>
<li><div class="li">Identify previous examples of technological projects with clear long-term goals, and then produce estimates of the time required to achieve those goals to varying degrees.</div></li>
<li><div class="li">Analyze the performance of different versions of software for benchmark problems, like SAT solving or chess, and determine the extent to which hardware and software progress facilitated improvement.</div></li>
<li><div class="li">Obtain a clearer picture of the extent to which historical developments in neuroscience have played a meaningful role in historical progress in AI. Our impression is that this influence has been minimal, but this judgment might be attributable to hindsight bias.</div></li>
<li><div class="li">In the field of AI, estimate the ratio of spending on hardware to spending on researchers.</div></li>
<li><div class="li">Estimate the change in inputs in mathematicians, scientists, or engineers, as a complement to estimates for rates of progress in those fields.</div></li>
<li><div class="li">Estimate the historical and present size of the AI field, ideally with plausible adjustments for quality (for example performing in-depth investigations for a small number of random samples, perhaps invoking expert opinion) and using these as a basis for quality-adjustments.</div></li>
<li><div class="li">
<a href="http://lukemuehlhauser.com/some-studies-which-could-improve-our-strategic-picture-of-superintelligence/">Luke Muehlhauser</a> and the <a href="http://futureoflife.org/static/data/documents/research_survey.pdf">Future of Life Institute</a>‘s section on forecasting both list further projects.
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<p>Unfortunately this is an incomplete list (even of the ideas which have struck as promising during this project). We are beginning to flesh it out further in our aforementioned <a href="/doku.php?id=featured_articles:research_topic_hardware_software_and_ai" title="Research topic: Hardware, software and AI">list of projects bearing on AI timelines</a>.</p>
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