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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   25097 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023

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That’s a good point, and I agree.

I suppose the only thing I have to say is that this is a rather realpolitik answer, no? It fails to be an argument against genocide if the Nazis ever gain such overwhelming power that they no longer fear a revolt from the “subhumans.” (Or if you find that scenario as unlikely as I do, if the AIs gain such overwhelming power that they no longer need to care about human desires.)

I'm afraid when I'm made to interact with nazis through words rather than bullets I have only realpolitik's at my disposal. They are moral mutants to me, much like AI is. The direction you're trying to get me to go for animals proves too much and I really don't see why it would be more convincing to an AI overlord whether or not I have hold some kind of non-hypocritical reason for why it should value human life while I don't value life of less sentient beings.

If the way we need to align AI such that it values human life is to give it a value system that also values the inner lives of cows and pigs then we should do that. But I can't stress enough how I don't think it works like that.

I really don't see why it would be more convincing to an AI overlord whether or not I have hold some kind of non-hypocritical reason for why it should value human life while I don't value life of less sentient beings.

If a legitimate non-hypocritical reason exists, then perhaps we can just debug the AI enough until it can properly reason through and realize for itself why we deserve our privileged position in reality. If no such rationale exists, then I suppose we’ll have to resort to cruder approaches for AI alignment.

I’m just spitballing there. I’m not actually looking for ways to align AI, but rather to see if I can morally justify non-hypocritically to myself why I can eat animals. On a personal level, I feel better about AI taking over and screwing us over if I know that it’s just us finally losing the same realpolitik game that we’ve inflicted onto “lesser” beings for eons, than if it’s the AI making a monumental moral misjudgment.

Thanks for the fruitful discussion.

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