4 ms·
Yes, it has major, major problems. There's a post here that lists quite a few of the problems: "Against the Culture" https://archive.is/gv0lG https://archive.
by Vecr 2y ago
Yes, it has major, major problems.
There's a post here that lists quite a few of the problems:
"Against the Culture"
https://archive.is/gv0lG https://archive.is/gv0lG
https://www.gleech.org/culture https://www.gleech.org/culture
The main sections I like there are "partial reverse alignment" and "the culture as a replicator", with either this or Why the Culture Wins talking about what happens when the Culture runs out of moral patients.
"Partial reverse alignment" means brainwashing/language control/constraints on allowed positions in the space of all minds, by the way.
You can think what you want about the Culture, and more crudely blatant gamer fantasies like the Optimalverse stuff and Yudkowsky's Fun Sequences, but I consider them all near 100% eternal loss conditions. The Culture's a loss condition anyway because there's no actual humans in it, but even if you swapped those in it's still a horrible end.
Edit: the optimalverse stuff is really only good if you want to be shocked out of the whole glob of related ideas, assuming you don't like the idea of being turned into a brainwashed cartoon pony like creature. Otherwise avoid it.
- davedx 2y agoThe humans are still there, just left to do their thing pottering around on Earth doing the odd genocide. (State of the Art)
- Vecr 2y agoYeah I've been told that, but you know what I mean. Unless humans are in charge of your proposed good ending/"win screen", it's not a good ending.
- grey-area 2y agoSo you’re a human supremacist? If the minds are intelligent beings, why shouldn’t they have parity with humans?
- Vecr 2y agoI'm a human supremacist and I don't want to be an Em. Also, uhh, there's lot less than a trillion Minds (uppercase M, the massive AIs of the culture). In fun space they're probably blocked out to make the computation feasible (essentially all the minds in a particular fun space are really the same mind that's playing the "game" of fun space). Also, I don't think they suffer. If they claim to, it's probably a trick (easy AI box escape method). If you think human suffering is bad, you've got some thinking to do.
- generic92034 2y agoAlso, if we consider that there _are_ vastly more intelligent and technologically advanced beings in the universe, the way the Culture accepts and treats "human standard" intelligences is pretty much the possible best case.
- grey-area 2y agoYes exactly, all intelligences should be treated with respect IMO, and humans would very quickly realise that if they found themselves confronted with more advanced intelligences. Human chauvinism (like many other forms of chauvinism) is based on an assumption of superiority.
- HelloMcFly 2y agoWowee, I really do not personally share this belief at all. Maybe we're the best out there, but I don't think humans above all is definitively the way to go without at least understanding some alternatives given how self-destructive we can be in large numbers.
- Vecr 2y agoWhat's the alternative? The space of minds is so large that if I met an alien and thought I liked them I'd do the math and then not believe my initial impression. Human preferences are so complicated that the bet to make is on humanity itself, and not a substitute.
- HelloMcFly 2y ago> What's the alternative? I'd argue the alternatives at this point are literally infinite, are they not? We're in the realm of speculation, and so the idea that any ending other than "humans are the boss" seems unimaginative to me. Especially so since I know humans can and do (especially at the group vs individual level) demonstrate short-sightedness, cruelty, and at best a reluctance to conservation. How open will humanity be to recognizing non-humans as having lives of equal value to our own? I wouldn't want to be an alien species meeting a superior-technology humanity, that's for sure.
- Vecr 2y agoWell, I don't know, I've been making fun of Yudkowsky's positions in this comment section, but I think the official corporate position of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI, the institute dedicated to banning Research into Machine Intelligence) is that you defect in such a scenario in the modal case. As in it is morally correct and rational to defect, not just that they predict it would happen.
- ahazred8ta 2y agoThe 31 Laws Of Fun Theory: https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/K4aGvLnHvYgX9pZHS/the-fun-theory-sequence https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/K4aGvLnHvYgX9pZHS/the-fun... -- https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/qZJBighPrnv9bSqTZ/31-laws-of-fun https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/qZJBighPrnv9bSqTZ/31-laws...