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> Also, incentives, not charisma, are what steer human behavior. The number of people with incentives to work towards destroying the whole of humanity is rathe

> Also, incentives, not charisma, are what steer human behavior. The number of people with incentives to work towards destroying the whole of humanity is rather small, and I'd rather we deal with them first since they need not wait for unfriendly AI to be dangerous...

ethanbond 4y ago
And yet here we all are consuming and pumping oil because… incentives.
- coldtea 4y ago
  That's assuming (1) "consuming and pumping oil" is a bad thing, and not a complex win-some/lose-some thing, which gave us huge progress and benefits in the 200 years we've used fossil fuels to pump the industrial revolution, (2) and that we can just absurtly stop consuming and pumping it right now, and there won't be huge disastrous 2nd order effects (in economy, society, ability for people to heat themselves etc) until better replacement technologies are not just available, but have similar EROI AND (even more important) capacity to scale up production, building, and deployment fast enough to cover our needs (which we're nowhere near with any "sustainable" technology, including nuclear).
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    It doesn’t assume either of those things. In fact it accounts for exactly those points under the heading “incentives.” We are engaging in clearly self-destructive behavior because, incentive structure accounted for (your points), it very well appears to be the best option. It wouldn’t be a hard problem if it didn’t. It should be obvious that it’s entirely possible to follow your (real) incentives all the way into a very bad outcome.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >We are engaging in clearly self-destructive behavior because, incentive structure accounted for (your points), it very well appears to be the best option Well, if it's the "best option" then it clearly isn't self-destructive... It's just something with side effects, but which also yielded huge benefits. Kind of how alcoholism is self-destructing. But a side-effect from taking a drug that helps us perform betetr or treats some condition we have, is not self-destructing. It's more of an unforseen issue, that we can't immediately correct (e.g. because of the condition worsening if we do it abruptly).

ethanbond 4y ago

And yet here we all are consuming and pumping oil because… incentives.

coldtea 4y ago
That's assuming (1) "consuming and pumping oil" is a bad thing, and not a complex win-some/lose-some thing, which gave us huge progress and benefits in the 200 years we've used fossil fuels to pump the industrial revolution, (2) and that we can just absurtly stop consuming and pumping it right now, and there won't be huge disastrous 2nd order effects (in economy, society, ability for people to heat themselves etc) until better replacement technologies are not just available, but have similar EROI AND (even more important) capacity to scale up production, building, and deployment fast enough to cover our needs (which we're nowhere near with any "sustainable" technology, including nuclear).
- ethanbond 4y ago
  It doesn’t assume either of those things. In fact it accounts for exactly those points under the heading “incentives.” We are engaging in clearly self-destructive behavior because, incentive structure accounted for (your points), it very well appears to be the best option. It wouldn’t be a hard problem if it didn’t. It should be obvious that it’s entirely possible to follow your (real) incentives all the way into a very bad outcome.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >We are engaging in clearly self-destructive behavior because, incentive structure accounted for (your points), it very well appears to be the best option Well, if it's the "best option" then it clearly isn't self-destructive... It's just something with side effects, but which also yielded huge benefits. Kind of how alcoholism is self-destructing. But a side-effect from taking a drug that helps us perform betetr or treats some condition we have, is not self-destructing. It's more of an unforseen issue, that we can't immediately correct (e.g. because of the condition worsening if we do it abruptly).