Episode
"Irretrievability; or, Murphy’s Curse of Oneshotness upon ASI" by Eliezer Yudkowsky
- Published
- May 5, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2257
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Summary
Example 1: The Viking 1 lander In the 1970s, NASA sent a pair of probes to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2 missions, at a total cost of 1 billion dollars[1970], equivalent to about 7 billion dollars[2025]. The Viking 1 probe operated on Mars's surface for six years, before its battery began to seriously degrade. One might have thought a battery problem like that would spell the irrevocable end of the mission. The probe had already launched and was now on Mars, very far away and out of reach ...