5 ms·

I found myself following a heuristic that is basically Asimov's laws: - whenever possible, do no harm - do not let harm occur due to inaction - when given a

by kortex 4y ago

I found myself following a heuristic that is basically Asimov's laws: - whenever possible, do no harm - do not let harm occur due to inaction - when given a choice, preserve the most amount of healthy lifespan in aggregate - higher lifeforms are more valuable than lower ones (cat vs lobsters) - deferred consequence is better than immediate (since it opens the door to other later interventions) It kind of really brings to bear how much of a thematic device the 3 laws are. There's no way to make them congruent with actual, messy, real-world situations. Also why the whole "self-driving car trolly problem" is a non-issue - there will never be a situation where the "AI" has nice neat consequences and a binary choice laid out in front of it. It's always going to be some collection of "preserve life as best as possible" heuristics.

thejohnconway 4y ago
> - whenever possible, do no harm > - do not let harm occur due to inaction Trolley problems, of course, are designed to bring these into direct conflict.
hyper_reality 4y ago
> - higher lifeforms are more valuable than lower ones (cat vs lobsters) Choosing between preserving the life of one cat vs one lobster seems straightforward enough. But the trolley problem was asking whether one cat was more valuable than five lobsters. According to the stats, many people agreed, but how about one cat vs a million lobsters? Or one cat vs all the lobsters on earth? Most people would think that making lobsters extinct would be very bad (unless they really hate lobsters). The difficulty is when we can no longer rely on intuition and have to come up with a precise exchange rate of when one being's life is more valuable than another's, which, like you say, is impossible to do in the complicated world we live in and our limited understanding of consciousness and neuroscience. In absence of that, deferring to the first law "whenever possible, do no harm" seems sensible.
- bluesnowmonkey 4y ago
  I chose to kill the cat, because there are too many of them and they devastate natural ecosystems, killing birds for instance. Lobsters on the other hand are badly depopulated. In both cases undoing a wrong committed by humanity.
- m0llusk 4y ago
  This is prominent in the elderly or children tests. Older people have gifts of experience that can be invaluable to the rest of us, especially when broadly shared. Children have great potential but through most of human history have been relatively cheap, easy to replace, and more of a value sink than generator.
- beeboop 4y ago
  I wish the featured page did more of this
el_nahual 4y ago
There's a (famous?) quote from a google engineer Andrew Chatham who worked on self driving cars. When asked about the trolley problem, he said "It takes some of the intellectual intrigue out of the problem, but the answer is almost always ‘slam on the brakes’” [0] [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/22/self-driving-cars-moral-dilemmas https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/22/self-driv...
- synu 4y ago
  You could adjust the question to be “the brakes have failed and..” to avoid that out.
  - salford 4y ago
    True, I imagine the next course of action would be something like "do nothing" — continue straight, try to be predictable, hope that other people in the situation can react accordingly.
    - synu 4y ago
      If we are still doing the trolley problem it would be “the brakes have failed, and … do you continue straight and definitely hit A, or turn the wheel and definitely hit B”.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        Sure, that still works as a purely abstract problem. But when it comes to self-driving cars, the answer is that it doesn't really matter.
      - lynx09 4y ago
        You should not change lanes unless it is safe to do so. The car should let off the gas, put on hazards and try to move to the side of the road. I am with the other engineers, the trolley problem does not apply here. Why waste effort deciding who lives and who dies when more time can be spent figuring out how to handle these situations safely?
SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
> deferred consequence is better than immediate (since it opens the door to other later interventions) Yep, I sent that trolley into the future just in case some time in the future they invent a cure for getting run over by trolleys
agentultra 4y ago
Enough context is lacking. That's kind of what makes it all absurd. Take the cat vs. lobsters. Did you know felis catus is responsible for the extinction of some 37 species of birds world wide mostly due to colonization. They're not indigenous predators to the North Americas and enjoy the protections and long life afforded by their proximity to humans while killing for entertainment. Lobsters on the other hand? Useful in their natural environments, have not become an invasive apex predator, could go on and feed many people too if properly managed and allowed to live their lives. Yet the majority of people saved the cat thinking it's a "higher life form." A bit absurd. Also the idea of trolleys without brakes and levers and cats that can't move off the track in the face of on-coming danger.
- com2kid 4y ago
  If the lobsters are tied to a trolley track, they aren't long for this world anyway. Trolley tracks aren't exactly a lobster's native habitat. Untie the cat and it'll, likely, be a-ok.
  - agentultra 4y ago
    Take out the cat though and you have dinner for 5 families!
    - I-M-S 4y ago
      Having dinner is precisely why I took out the lobsters (well, depending they're not too mangled after being run over by a trolley).
- 323 4y ago
  If we are to judge ethically, one particular cat should not be punished for the sins of the cat species. As far as we know this particular cat didn't do nothing. Then we need to talk about criminal liability. In the sense that a cat can't stop itself from killing birds. We don't punish toddlers if they kill a bird, because they don't understand that they shouldn't. Also, the whole idea of "native species" is highly subjective. What is "native species" today maybe it was an "invasive species" yesterday.
lern_too_spel 4y ago
Soock was wrong — this is not how rational people behave. Rational people preserve their own life. If they die, the consequences of their choices can no longer matter to them. A cat isn't going to affect my longevity, but a cat is more likely to be a pet than five lobsters, and the emotional distress of the owner will have some greater expected impact on my longevity than the lesser distress of the lobster fisher who lost $60 from their catch.

by kortex 4y ago

thejohnconway 4y ago

> - whenever possible, do no harm > - do not let harm occur due to inaction Trolley problems, of course, are designed to bring these into direct conflict.

hyper_reality 4y ago

> - higher lifeforms are more valuable than lower ones (cat vs lobsters) Choosing between preserving the life of one cat vs one lobster seems straightforward enough. But the trolley problem was asking whether one cat was more valuable than five lobsters. According to the stats, many people agreed, but how about one cat vs a million lobsters? Or one cat vs all the lobsters on earth? Most people would think that making lobsters extinct would be very bad (unless they really hate lobsters). The difficulty is when we can no longer rely on intuition and have to come up with a precise exchange rate of when one being's life is more valuable than another's, which, like you say, is impossible to do in the complicated world we live in and our limited understanding of consciousness and neuroscience. In absence of that, deferring to the first law "whenever possible, do no harm" seems sensible.

bluesnowmonkey 4y ago
I chose to kill the cat, because there are too many of them and they devastate natural ecosystems, killing birds for instance. Lobsters on the other hand are badly depopulated. In both cases undoing a wrong committed by humanity.
m0llusk 4y ago
This is prominent in the elderly or children tests. Older people have gifts of experience that can be invaluable to the rest of us, especially when broadly shared. Children have great potential but through most of human history have been relatively cheap, easy to replace, and more of a value sink than generator.
beeboop 4y ago
I wish the featured page did more of this

el_nahual 4y ago

There's a (famous?) quote from a google engineer Andrew Chatham who worked on self driving cars. When asked about the trolley problem, he said "It takes some of the intellectual intrigue out of the problem, but the answer is almost always ‘slam on the brakes’” [0] [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/22/self-driving-cars-moral-dilemmas https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/22/self-driv...

synu 4y ago
You could adjust the question to be “the brakes have failed and..” to avoid that out.
- salford 4y ago
  True, I imagine the next course of action would be something like "do nothing" — continue straight, try to be predictable, hope that other people in the situation can react accordingly.
  - synu 4y ago
    If we are still doing the trolley problem it would be “the brakes have failed, and … do you continue straight and definitely hit A, or turn the wheel and definitely hit B”.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Sure, that still works as a purely abstract problem. But when it comes to self-driving cars, the answer is that it doesn't really matter.
    - lynx09 4y ago
      You should not change lanes unless it is safe to do so. The car should let off the gas, put on hazards and try to move to the side of the road. I am with the other engineers, the trolley problem does not apply here. Why waste effort deciding who lives and who dies when more time can be spent figuring out how to handle these situations safely?

SturgeonsLaw 4y ago

> deferred consequence is better than immediate (since it opens the door to other later interventions) Yep, I sent that trolley into the future just in case some time in the future they invent a cure for getting run over by trolleys

agentultra 4y ago

Enough context is lacking. That's kind of what makes it all absurd. Take the cat vs. lobsters. Did you know felis catus is responsible for the extinction of some 37 species of birds world wide mostly due to colonization. They're not indigenous predators to the North Americas and enjoy the protections and long life afforded by their proximity to humans while killing for entertainment. Lobsters on the other hand? Useful in their natural environments, have not become an invasive apex predator, could go on and feed many people too if properly managed and allowed to live their lives. Yet the majority of people saved the cat thinking it's a "higher life form." A bit absurd. Also the idea of trolleys without brakes and levers and cats that can't move off the track in the face of on-coming danger.

com2kid 4y ago
If the lobsters are tied to a trolley track, they aren't long for this world anyway. Trolley tracks aren't exactly a lobster's native habitat. Untie the cat and it'll, likely, be a-ok.
- agentultra 4y ago
  Take out the cat though and you have dinner for 5 families!
  - I-M-S 4y ago
    Having dinner is precisely why I took out the lobsters (well, depending they're not too mangled after being run over by a trolley).
323 4y ago
If we are to judge ethically, one particular cat should not be punished for the sins of the cat species. As far as we know this particular cat didn't do nothing. Then we need to talk about criminal liability. In the sense that a cat can't stop itself from killing birds. We don't punish toddlers if they kill a bird, because they don't understand that they shouldn't. Also, the whole idea of "native species" is highly subjective. What is "native species" today maybe it was an "invasive species" yesterday.

lern_too_spel 4y ago

Soock was wrong — this is not how rational people behave. Rational people preserve their own life. If they die, the consequences of their choices can no longer matter to them. A cat isn't going to affect my longevity, but a cat is more likely to be a pet than five lobsters, and the emotional distress of the owner will have some greater expected impact on my longevity than the lesser distress of the lobster fisher who lost $60 from their catch.