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> WHY is a human life more valuable than a robotic one? This "but why humans" reaction is bizarre to me every time I encounter it. We care about humans becaus

by dpark 8y ago

> WHY is a human life more valuable than a robotic one? This "but why humans" reaction is bizarre to me every time I encounter it. We care about humans because we are humans. There's nothing deeper to uncover. We care about ourselves. Humans do not care about the value of a robot "life", because we generally feel it has none.

jolmg 8y ago
> Humans do not care about the value of a robot "life", because we generally feel it has none. Hasn't Atheism been on the rise? I wonder how people will feel about this subject of life by the time AGI is achieved.
- dpark 8y ago
  I’m not aware of any logical argument from a point of atheism that assigns actual value to anything. If the entirety of existence is pointless, then there is no logical argument for human life being more valuable than a robot because both have zero intrinsic value. Given that, fighting the natural anthropic tendency seems pointless.
  - mfoy_ 8y ago
    Atheism isn't nihilism. Values are subjective. Morality is relative.
    - jolmg 8y ago
      Right, I didn't mean both types of life having no worth. Rather, I just meant to raise the possibility of the spread of belief that a human's and an AGI's life are not so different that they deserve different valuations. I was implying that in such a case, the valuation of an AGI's life might increase to something similar to that of a human's, and not that a human's would decrease to that of an AGI's.
    - dpark 8y ago
      Moral relativism is nihilism.
      - mfoy_ 8y ago
        "Nihilism is the view that there are no moral facts, that nothing is right or wrong, or morally good or bad. Relativism is the view that moral statements are true or false only relative to some standard or other, that things are right or wrong relative to Catholic morality, say, and different things are right or wrong relative to Confucian morality, but nothing is right or wrong simpliciter."[1] I am a relativist, but not a nihilist. [1]http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195147790.001.0001/acprof-9780195147797-chapter-10 http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195147790.001...
        dpark 8y ago
        I don’t see these as meaningfully different. One says there are no moral facts. The other says there are no moral facts unless you impose an arbitrary moral system. Someone who doesn’t believe in “moral facts” can still understand that if you define a framework for evaluating moral statements, you can make a true/false call within that framework. To believe otherwise would be to literally reject logic. That doesn’t indicate that the arbitrary framework imposed has any actual meaning. It’s not coincidental that these are discussed side by side in your book, nor that some other definitions explicitly call moral relativism nihilism.
        mfoy_ 8y ago
        I don't think you can just swoop in and say that two different schools of philosophy are really the same because you can't tell the difference.
        dpark 8y ago
        This is fallacious. The fact that a difference is asserted does not mean one exists. Your particular flavor of moral relativism seems to be absolute relativism. A common criticism of absolute moral relativism is that it is indistinguishable from moral nihilism. Similarly, arguments for moral nihilism are made from a stance of absolute moral relativism. Now, there are forms of moral relativism, namely descriptive relativism, that are not the same as nihilism. These simply acknowledge the fact that different people hold different moral views, speaking to the reality of the world rather than the plausibility or implausibility of objective morals. (I would also personally hesitate to call descriptive moral relativism a philosophy since it doesn’t attempt to speak to any fundamental truth. Acknowledging that people hold different morals seems less of a philosophical viewpoint and more of an ability to make basic human observation.) But you don’t seem to be a descriptive moral relativist. You’ve made absolutist statements about the relativity of morals, leavings me to conclude that you’re making a distinction without a difference because you don’t want to call yourself a nihilist. If you can provide some practical difference between absolute moral relativism and moral nihilism, please do. I’ve been unable to find anything that draws a meaningful difference between the two except that the absolute moral relativist says you can evaluate moral statements in the context of an arbitrary moral framework, and the moral nihilist says, sure you can, but it’s arbitrary so it doesn’t actually mean anything. Everything else seems to involve painting nihilists as morons incapable of recognizing the reality of cultural norms (“Moral nihilists say you can eat babies for breakfast!”) in a weak attempt to draw a meaningless distinction because for some reason “nihilist” is seen as a worse label than “moral relativist”. To the extent that moral relativism is a spectrum, moral nihilism simply seems to be the stronger end. The weaker end is just observation and the middle is a lack of willingness to firmly accept or deny universal morality.
ergothus 8y ago
> There's nothing deeper to uncover. For me, at least, you're coming at it from the other direction. I'm not really asking "why" in the "how did this come to be" - the answer to that is rather self obvious. I'm asking "why" in the "is this objectively actually correct? Is this how I want things to be?" - which have no answer, but the effort of trying to find one can uncover plenty of deeper ideas.
- dpark 8y ago
  There is no meaningful answer to your question. For religious individuals, the answer is dogmatic (and generally yes, humans have value above all else except God(s)). For atheists, the answer is logically a vacuous no, because all of existence is without meaning.
  - ergothus 8y ago
    >> which have no answer > There is no meaningful answer to your question Didn't I say that? Didn't I point out that the ATTEMPT to answer was valuable? >> Is this how I want things to be? > because all of existence is without meaning Atheists don't have be nihilists.
    - dpark 8y ago
      I’d love to see a meaningful argument to the contrary. Near as I can tell atheism implies nihilism and the extent an atheist disagrees is decided entirely by how convincingly they can lie to themselves.
      - mfoy_ 8y ago
        Atheism only implies nihilism if you subscribe to the concept that values are objective and morality is universal, which begs the question of who determines values and what is morally "good" and how.
        dpark 8y ago
AtlasBarfed 8y ago
why was a human life more valuable than Harambe?
- jrace 8y ago
  If Harambe's life was valued he would never have been in that situation in the first place.
gjm11 8y ago
I don't think this is quite right. Suppose someone says "I care about white people because I am a white person" (and doesn't care at all about black people) or says "I care about women because I am a woman" (and doesn't care at all about men) or says "I care about psychologists because I am psychologist" (and doesn't care at all about people in any other line of work). Would any of those seem obviously reasonable? They wouldn't to me. So, if caring only about Indians because you're Indian isn't reasonable but caring only about humans because you're human isn't reasonable, what's the relevant difference? That seems to me a question it's perfectly fair to ask. And some possible answers to the question don't make it obvious that the distinction between humans and hypothetical robots with minds that resemble ours enough (e.g.) for us to talk with them is one that justifies caring about humans and not caring about those robots.
- dpark 8y ago
  Look at human history and you’ll find there’s very little relevant difference. Humans tend to generally decide that any “external group” is low value. The level of value is tightly correlated with how much we identify with the group. When white Americans saw blacks as savages closer to animals than “humans”, whites traded blacks as slaves and argued it was morally right. We mourn gorillas but not giant squid because we identify more with gorillas. The question for robots is whether we’ll ever identify with them strongly. I’m doubtful.

by dpark 8y ago

jolmg 8y ago

> Humans do not care about the value of a robot "life", because we generally feel it has none. Hasn't Atheism been on the rise? I wonder how people will feel about this subject of life by the time AGI is achieved.

dpark 8y ago
I’m not aware of any logical argument from a point of atheism that assigns actual value to anything. If the entirety of existence is pointless, then there is no logical argument for human life being more valuable than a robot because both have zero intrinsic value. Given that, fighting the natural anthropic tendency seems pointless.
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  Atheism isn't nihilism. Values are subjective. Morality is relative.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    Right, I didn't mean both types of life having no worth. Rather, I just meant to raise the possibility of the spread of belief that a human's and an AGI's life are not so different that they deserve different valuations. I was implying that in such a case, the valuation of an AGI's life might increase to something similar to that of a human's, and not that a human's would decrease to that of an AGI's.
  - dpark 8y ago
    Moral relativism is nihilism.
    - mfoy_ 8y ago
      "Nihilism is the view that there are no moral facts, that nothing is right or wrong, or morally good or bad. Relativism is the view that moral statements are true or false only relative to some standard or other, that things are right or wrong relative to Catholic morality, say, and different things are right or wrong relative to Confucian morality, but nothing is right or wrong simpliciter."[1] I am a relativist, but not a nihilist. [1]http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195147790.001.0001/acprof-9780195147797-chapter-10 http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195147790.001...
      - dpark 8y ago
        I don’t see these as meaningfully different. One says there are no moral facts. The other says there are no moral facts unless you impose an arbitrary moral system. Someone who doesn’t believe in “moral facts” can still understand that if you define a framework for evaluating moral statements, you can make a true/false call within that framework. To believe otherwise would be to literally reject logic. That doesn’t indicate that the arbitrary framework imposed has any actual meaning. It’s not coincidental that these are discussed side by side in your book, nor that some other definitions explicitly call moral relativism nihilism.
        mfoy_ 8y ago
        I don't think you can just swoop in and say that two different schools of philosophy are really the same because you can't tell the difference.
        dpark 8y ago
        This is fallacious. The fact that a difference is asserted does not mean one exists. Your particular flavor of moral relativism seems to be absolute relativism. A common criticism of absolute moral relativism is that it is indistinguishable from moral nihilism. Similarly, arguments for moral nihilism are made from a stance of absolute moral relativism. Now, there are forms of moral relativism, namely descriptive relativism, that are not the same as nihilism. These simply acknowledge the fact that different people hold different moral views, speaking to the reality of the world rather than the plausibility or implausibility of objective morals. (I would also personally hesitate to call descriptive moral relativism a philosophy since it doesn’t attempt to speak to any fundamental truth. Acknowledging that people hold different morals seems less of a philosophical viewpoint and more of an ability to make basic human observation.) But you don’t seem to be a descriptive moral relativist. You’ve made absolutist statements about the relativity of morals, leavings me to conclude that you’re making a distinction without a difference because you don’t want to call yourself a nihilist. If you can provide some practical difference between absolute moral relativism and moral nihilism, please do. I’ve been unable to find anything that draws a meaningful difference between the two except that the absolute moral relativist says you can evaluate moral statements in the context of an arbitrary moral framework, and the moral nihilist says, sure you can, but it’s arbitrary so it doesn’t actually mean anything. Everything else seems to involve painting nihilists as morons incapable of recognizing the reality of cultural norms (“Moral nihilists say you can eat babies for breakfast!”) in a weak attempt to draw a meaningless distinction because for some reason “nihilist” is seen as a worse label than “moral relativist”. To the extent that moral relativism is a spectrum, moral nihilism simply seems to be the stronger end. The weaker end is just observation and the middle is a lack of willingness to firmly accept or deny universal morality.

ergothus 8y ago

> There's nothing deeper to uncover. For me, at least, you're coming at it from the other direction. I'm not really asking "why" in the "how did this come to be" - the answer to that is rather self obvious. I'm asking "why" in the "is this objectively actually correct? Is this how I want things to be?" - which have no answer, but the effort of trying to find one can uncover plenty of deeper ideas.

dpark 8y ago
There is no meaningful answer to your question. For religious individuals, the answer is dogmatic (and generally yes, humans have value above all else except God(s)). For atheists, the answer is logically a vacuous no, because all of existence is without meaning.
- ergothus 8y ago
  >> which have no answer > There is no meaningful answer to your question Didn't I say that? Didn't I point out that the ATTEMPT to answer was valuable? >> Is this how I want things to be? > because all of existence is without meaning Atheists don't have be nihilists.
  - dpark 8y ago
    I’d love to see a meaningful argument to the contrary. Near as I can tell atheism implies nihilism and the extent an atheist disagrees is decided entirely by how convincingly they can lie to themselves.
    - mfoy_ 8y ago
      Atheism only implies nihilism if you subscribe to the concept that values are objective and morality is universal, which begs the question of who determines values and what is morally "good" and how.
      - dpark 8y ago

AtlasBarfed 8y ago

why was a human life more valuable than Harambe?

jrace 8y ago
If Harambe's life was valued he would never have been in that situation in the first place.

gjm11 8y ago

I don't think this is quite right. Suppose someone says "I care about white people because I am a white person" (and doesn't care at all about black people) or says "I care about women because I am a woman" (and doesn't care at all about men) or says "I care about psychologists because I am psychologist" (and doesn't care at all about people in any other line of work). Would any of those seem obviously reasonable? They wouldn't to me. So, if caring only about Indians because you're Indian isn't reasonable but caring only about humans because you're human isn't reasonable, what's the relevant difference? That seems to me a question it's perfectly fair to ask. And some possible answers to the question don't make it obvious that the distinction between humans and hypothetical robots with minds that resemble ours enough (e.g.) for us to talk with them is one that justifies caring about humans and not caring about those robots.

dpark 8y ago
Look at human history and you’ll find there’s very little relevant difference. Humans tend to generally decide that any “external group” is low value. The level of value is tightly correlated with how much we identify with the group. When white Americans saw blacks as savages closer to animals than “humans”, whites traded blacks as slaves and argued it was morally right. We mourn gorillas but not giant squid because we identify more with gorillas. The question for robots is whether we’ll ever identify with them strongly. I’m doubtful.