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The fundamental problem is there is no such thing as "human values". Lots of people think that their morals and philosophies are "universal", but they nearly ne
by hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
The fundamental problem is there is no such thing as "human values". Lots of people think that their morals and philosophies are "universal", but they nearly never are. Just look at the impossible bind social media companies are in (clarification: I'm in no way excusing the abuses of social media companies, but even that thought means I think my definition of "abuses" is the right one) - one tribe thinks hate speech and misinformation is the cardinal sin, while the other thinks censorship and bias are the primary problems - there is simply no way to appease both sides for any particular piece of controversial content.
Take something more relevant to the dangers of AI. It could be an entirely rational belief that the vast majority of human procreation results in human suffering and despair (not to mention an order of magnitude greater suffering and despair for other organisms on Earth), so the only compassionate thing to do is to end that suffering - by euthanizing every human on Earth.
At least personally, that seems like a bad outcome to me. But I just make that point to show that our "human values" are not internally consistent. It's easy to read the writings of Aristotle (often considered one of humanity's greatest philosophers) and hear him argue that slavery is an absolutely just and rational outcome of war. "Human values" are all just a bunch of gray areas and judgment calls over which there is no consensus.
- keiferski 3y agoThere are if you go to a more fundamental level of values. Basically every human society wants to maintain human dominance of the ecosystem. No one wants there to be a higher alpha predator, whether that be wolves or AIs.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago> No one wants there to be a higher alpha predator, whether that be wolves or AIs. ... or other humans, which kind of gets to the crux of the problem in the first place.
- sandspar 3y agoIt may also be a basic human value to, if there is a higher alpha predator, be the group that controls it. I imagine that early humans were very happy that their pet wolves could effectively kill other humans. Weapons may be seen similarly, a kind of alpha predator pet. If AI can be turned into a way to kill or dominate other people then many will welcome it.
- creer 3y agoOh yes some do. They just want that higher alpha predator to be at THEIR service.
- ecoquant 3y agoWe forget that our language will evolve in time too as all this is normalized. I could say I just took my artificial general horse to the store after stopping to feed it gasoline but it obviously sounds stupid. People philosophizing about total nonsense like the morality of how many souls of a dead artificial general horse can dance on the head of a pin will fade in time. Of course, there is a real danger of cult like, non-logical, non-falsifiable, religious type beliefs gaining a big foothold between then and now.