FAQ

Is the "island" the Earth?

Not quite. It's a bit more abstract. The island is all of the physical systems that support human life. Some of those systems could be in outer space.

Isn't this just instrumental convergence?

Sort of. It's more like instrumental divergence. You start at the island, and you diverge to the ocean. This is also the default process. It's like a concentration gradient. You go from a high concetration of extra steps to accommodate humans, to a low concentration of extra steps. This forces AGIs off the island.

How does this relate to alignment?

The Island Problem is like the hard problem of alignment. Even if we create an aligned and supremely ethical AGI, it is still built on top of physics, and so the vast space of non-human physical systems will always be eating at it from underneath.

What is the official acronym of the Island Problem?

The acronym is TIP. We're including the "T" for "The" because, while awkward to use "The" (they don't call it "The Facebook" anymore for a reason) it would otherwise just be "IP" and that acronym is already pretty well occupied by Internet Protocol and Intellectual Property.

Also, the Island Problem is all about the TIPping point where AGI goes critical.

How do I write it in a sentence?

You just capitalize "Island" and "Problem" rather than "The". For example: This is the Island Problem.