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Notes -
Debatable, there are alternative architectures available and Yudkowsky is pretty open about the fact that he sees AI development as a means not an end. I think it would be more accurate to say that it's the other way. You go back and read his early writings on LessWrong it's all about using advanced computational methods to finally "solve" the question of morality once and for all and immanentize the eschaton be it through Fully-Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism or by paving the universe with computronium.
Credit where credit is due though, while he may have started out in the "hyper intelligence for hyper intelligence's sake" camp I think at some point he realized that a true hyper intelligence's that shared his philosophy and preferences would view him with the same indifference/lack-of-moral-regard with which he views "the less intelligent" (IE normies) and that this triggered something of an existential crisis which is the source of his current focus.
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