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Sure, the morality/wiseness discussion is important. But this is not what most philosophers are about. For example, the very post we are discussing here talks

by theamk 5y ago

Sure, the morality/wiseness discussion is important. But this is not what most philosophers are about. For example, the very post we are discussing here talks about physical resonance -- nothing to about morality. A poster two level up claims that understanding consciousness will help with "mind portability" and "full reality simulation" -- nothing about morality either. In fact, when I think about the question of "how wise is it to create AGI" I immediately think of MIRI institute [0], whose entire goal is to warn humanity about dangers of AI. Interestingly, it is not staffed by philosphers -- it is all computer theorists and scientists. Similarly, AI Now institute [1] is also mostly science/engineering people. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Intelligence_Research_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Intelligence_Research_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Now_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Now_Institute

GoblinSlayer 5y ago
They forget to say that obedient AI is a greater danger: having an obedient AI a relatively small group of people can wield an arbitrarily large power and thus achieve freedom from social norms.
- thewakalix 5y ago
  Do you really think it would be better for everyone to die than for Bad People to gain power? If you had a "kill everyone" button, would you press it whenever a dictator showed up?
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    You think Bad People with power will let you live so that you can plot to overthrow them?
  - bumby 5y ago
    I'm not quite following you here. If the "everyone dies" scenario where AI isn't used? Isn't that a false dichotomy? Or is it where AI is used but in a completely uncontrolled, run-amok kind of manner?
bumby 5y ago
In your opinion, what are most philosophers about? I think even ignoring the more academic discussions, any of these contexts at least have legal ramifications, at which point jurisprudence (aka the philosophy of law) is relevant. >For example, the very post we are discussing here talks about physical resonance -- nothing to about morality. A poster two level up claims that understanding consciousness will help with "mind portability" and "full reality simulation" -- nothing about morality either. Sure, that's fair. If all we're concerned about about is designing experiments to test subsets of the consciousness problem I think that's an appropriate take. And to your point, a subset is the main thrust of the article. But perhaps I read too much into your statement about "solving" the problem. To me, there is a big potential danger at the interface between technological understanding in the experimental sense and the application beyond the laboratory. It's one thing to say we "solved" the question about how to split the atom, but once that translates to an application of, say, a nuclear bomb or a nuclear reactor it requires some of thought from the domain of philosophy and when it's left strictly to technocracy it may be set up for misalignment with the concerns of broader society.
- theamk 5y ago
  > In your opinion, what are most philosophers about? Disclaimer: My main source of knowledge about this for the last 10 years is HN posts. It seems to me modern philosophy is very useful for the person who study it -- a large number of people who studied that claim that studying it helps them to organize their thoughts, and even help with "living a better life". Unlike many other sciences, philosophy makes no working predictions regarding real world, nor it is useful to non-philosophers. It only benefits people studying it. (Compare with physics for example: one may not be a physicist and have no idea how electricity works, but they still use electric light every day). Few centuries ago, philosophy was much more -- it was covering all natural sciences. There are still leftovers of that usage (the PhD degree; the jurisprudence being called "philosophy of law") but they have little relation to modern philosophy -- all the stuff which affects real world got their own type science. Sometimes philosophers forget about two previous paragraphs and try to apply their knowledge to external world -- like in this post that we are discussing. The results are normally hilariously wrong. Another example is [1], a philosopher who has a "solution to all the paradoxes of the infinite" which apparently has 0 citations and he does not care. This looks like a completely broken science field to me, so I can only hope that he is an exception and other philosophy departments are much better. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28367416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28367416 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28119854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28119854

by theamk 5y ago

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

They forget to say that obedient AI is a greater danger: having an obedient AI a relatively small group of people can wield an arbitrarily large power and thus achieve freedom from social norms.

thewakalix 5y ago
Do you really think it would be better for everyone to die than for Bad People to gain power? If you had a "kill everyone" button, would you press it whenever a dictator showed up?
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  You think Bad People with power will let you live so that you can plot to overthrow them?
- bumby 5y ago
  I'm not quite following you here. If the "everyone dies" scenario where AI isn't used? Isn't that a false dichotomy? Or is it where AI is used but in a completely uncontrolled, run-amok kind of manner?

bumby 5y ago

In your opinion, what are most philosophers about? I think even ignoring the more academic discussions, any of these contexts at least have legal ramifications, at which point jurisprudence (aka the philosophy of law) is relevant. >For example, the very post we are discussing here talks about physical resonance -- nothing to about morality. A poster two level up claims that understanding consciousness will help with "mind portability" and "full reality simulation" -- nothing about morality either. Sure, that's fair. If all we're concerned about about is designing experiments to test subsets of the consciousness problem I think that's an appropriate take. And to your point, a subset is the main thrust of the article. But perhaps I read too much into your statement about "solving" the problem. To me, there is a big potential danger at the interface between technological understanding in the experimental sense and the application beyond the laboratory. It's one thing to say we "solved" the question about how to split the atom, but once that translates to an application of, say, a nuclear bomb or a nuclear reactor it requires some of thought from the domain of philosophy and when it's left strictly to technocracy it may be set up for misalignment with the concerns of broader society.

theamk 5y ago
> In your opinion, what are most philosophers about? Disclaimer: My main source of knowledge about this for the last 10 years is HN posts. It seems to me modern philosophy is very useful for the person who study it -- a large number of people who studied that claim that studying it helps them to organize their thoughts, and even help with "living a better life". Unlike many other sciences, philosophy makes no working predictions regarding real world, nor it is useful to non-philosophers. It only benefits people studying it. (Compare with physics for example: one may not be a physicist and have no idea how electricity works, but they still use electric light every day). Few centuries ago, philosophy was much more -- it was covering all natural sciences. There are still leftovers of that usage (the PhD degree; the jurisprudence being called "philosophy of law") but they have little relation to modern philosophy -- all the stuff which affects real world got their own type science. Sometimes philosophers forget about two previous paragraphs and try to apply their knowledge to external world -- like in this post that we are discussing. The results are normally hilariously wrong. Another example is [1], a philosopher who has a "solution to all the paradoxes of the infinite" which apparently has 0 citations and he does not care. This looks like a completely broken science field to me, so I can only hope that he is an exception and other philosophy departments are much better. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28367416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28367416 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28119854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28119854