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> Should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa? I'd be very surprised if the EA movement has a consensus opinion on

by philh 11y ago

> Should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa? I'd be very surprised if the EA movement has a consensus opinion on this question. > Should we all quit our jobs to solve friendly AI? I'm not aware that anyone has ever said we should do this. (If you have an example, feel free to share.) The closest I can come is something like "most people should donate as much money as they can to the cause of AI risk". That might itself be an exaggeration, and it's a fringe position within EA.

viscountchocula 11y ago
>> Should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa? >I'd be very surprised if the EA movement has a consensus opinion on this question. Right, but the rest of the world absolutely does have a consensus opinion on this. I think dmvaldman's point is that it's disturbing EA doesn't.
- Anderkent 11y ago
  The world thinks they have a consensus opinion on this, but actually they probably don't. Otherwise, why is bin laden dead?
  - maaku 11y ago
    Revenge.
  - a3voices 11y ago
    Because Obama likes to kill bad guys.
    - Anderkent 11y ago
      And how is someone who is single-handedly responsible for a significant portion of child mortality rates in Africa not a bad guy? If we find killing Bin Laden excusable (even if not morally correct), shouldn't killing some kind of Joker - who's poisoning African wells with mercury and increasing child mortality rates - be excusable as well? The problem with all those 'oh should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa?' is that people try to intuitively reason about abstract situations; for which our intuition is shit. If you imagine what it would actually take for one person to have measurable impact on child mortality, so that just killing that one person decreases the rates, you always end up with monsters that 1. don't actually exist 2. your intuition would say should be killed.

by philh 11y ago

viscountchocula 11y ago

>> Should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa? >I'd be very surprised if the EA movement has a consensus opinion on this question. Right, but the rest of the world absolutely does have a consensus opinion on this. I think dmvaldman's point is that it's disturbing EA doesn't.

Anderkent 11y ago
The world thinks they have a consensus opinion on this, but actually they probably don't. Otherwise, why is bin laden dead?
- maaku 11y ago
  Revenge.
- a3voices 11y ago
  Because Obama likes to kill bad guys.
  - Anderkent 11y ago
    And how is someone who is single-handedly responsible for a significant portion of child mortality rates in Africa not a bad guy? If we find killing Bin Laden excusable (even if not morally correct), shouldn't killing some kind of Joker - who's poisoning African wells with mercury and increasing child mortality rates - be excusable as well? The problem with all those 'oh should I kill someone if it is the best way to decrease child mortality rates in Africa?' is that people try to intuitively reason about abstract situations; for which our intuition is shit. If you imagine what it would actually take for one person to have measurable impact on child mortality, so that just killing that one person decreases the rates, you always end up with monsters that 1. don't actually exist 2. your intuition would say should be killed.