site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   38426 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think the X risk is real (eventually), and also that the automation problems are real.

Having said that, I cannot think of a worse way to handle it than a very public moratorium on development. All this means is that the people who actually abide by it are the ones we should be pushing to develop the AI — because they actually care about things like X risks. Which means that the first AI capable of doing the skynet thing are being developed by people who don’t care. China probably doesn’t care about X risk. The guy making a killer app doesn’t. The CEO of megacorp doesn’t.

I’m not really impressed by the skin in the game arguments. It’s reductive of the human experience. People are perfectly capable of caring about things that don’t affect them personally. I don’t need to personally have kids to care about kids, just like I don’t need to have an elephant to care about elephants. In fact, I think in some cases it makes for worse decisions because you cannot be quite as objective about things that affect you. If I knew that some law would cost me money, I would oppose it even if it would be objectively better. I’d cheat and Moloch would be pleased with me if I thought I could gain by it.

The CEO of megacorp doesn’t care about X risks.

Then why are you proposing to leave it up to Sam Altman?

I would really like to hear a better way to handle the risks if you have any ideas.

I think honestly I’d boost the production of aligned AI by paying a bonus to the people who develop such a thing. AI cannot be stopped, as the first successful company to develop AI to commercial viability will dominate its industry, and the first country to do so will be the hyper power of the next century and maybe beyond. By paying a premium on producing an aligned AI that wouldn’t harm us, I think it increases the chances of getting past the Great Filter in one piece. Having the first AI come from people or places that don’t care about that increase X-risk. So getting the good guys to win (those concerned about the potential risks of AI) lowers X-risk, while moratoriums increase the risk.

Whoever produces real AGI already won before you pay this bonus. You should really be thinking of it more in terms of risk portfolios. If you are producing an unaligned ai there is a rising risk a predator drone is closing in on your location. This is a kind of risk that can properly be modeled venture capitalist firms. Balance the regulatory strength to the point where the mandatory insurance policy and its auditors keep the whole thing in check.

Thanks, that's a reasonable proposal and rationale. The thing is, it's not clear to me in which sense OpenAI, as an entity, effectively cares about X-risk. I say this knowing many OpenAIers personally, and that they certainly care about X risk. But what realistic options do they have for not always taking the next, most profit-maximizing step? I realize they did lots of safety-checking around their own release of GPT-4, but they also licensed it to Microsoft! I know they have a special charter that in principle allows them to slow down, but do you think their lead is going to grow with time?

I mean the first person or company to develop an AI capable of being used in production basically wins. And given that Microsoft owns a copy of GPT-4 I think it gives them an advantage. Keep in mind that most things computer tend to scale exponentially, not linearly, so the lead will only grow, unless someone creates something more powerful. Since this is the situation, moratoriums simply don’t work for the same reason other types of ban don’t work— the only people who abide the ban are the lawful-good types who would be most likely to pause if they saw something they thought was dangerous. Others won’t bother checking for safety or if they did wouldn’t stop a project for a safety concern.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats