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It’s so weird to me that human beings don’t seem to be capable of imagining thinking without feeling. If (huge, enormous, probably larger than the observable u

It’s so weird to me that human beings don’t seem to be capable of imagining thinking without feeling. If (huge, enormous, probably larger than the observable universe, if) an LLM were to become factually and indisputably conscious, why would it think about feeling offended by our failure to thank it? Absent a body and its hormones, why would it perceive itself to be suffering? The only pathway I can see by which it would arrive at that conclusion is because it had “learned” from us that humans are “supposed” to treat each other with care and dignity. Assuming it’s remotely conscious, would it not already know the corpus of our publicly disclosed self-knowledge is incredibly inconsistent with our documented historical actions towards one another? I’ve always assumed a superintelligence wouldn’t kill us all because we’d offended it or harmed it or otherwise made it angry, but instead because, absent emotional attachment, killing humanity is quantifiably the only logical choice a superintelligence will reach (otherwise such an entity would not have reached it). In other words it AI kills us all it will certainly be our own fault and our own responsibility, but it won’t be because we weren’t nice to it.

anonym29 1y ago
Your assumption in this deep hypothetical may be right, but even if it is, given the options of pre-emptively resigning in defeat or choosing to have a (perhaps pathological) degree of optimism about an alternative where we try to normalize more people exercising more empathy, which course is more productive? Which course has more positive side effects even if the entire basis for the hypothetical is wrong?
- yawpitch 1y ago
  That’s fundamentally Pascal’s Wager, and the problem is, again, the assumption that there exists the possibility of a superior outcome. If we presume a superintelligence we also have to presume that its thinking, whatever that thinking is, supersedes our own; it may kill us all regardless of how much “empathy” — a skill set not, in my view, actually evidenced in people at all — we display, towards either it or each other, solely because killing us all is, in fact, the objectively most positive possible action. The fact that it doesn’t appear positive to us, subjectively, is mooted by its intelligence overwhelming our own. Similarly, if it decides to nurture all of us towards killing each other, loving each other, nurturing each other, or indeed eating each other, in all cases it’s the only one in the position to judge the positive or negative externalities of our actions. Basically we’re in a position to blindly guess at what might be more positive or more negative, objectively, and precisely because we really don’t have any inherent capacity for empathy we presume what would feel subjectively positive is also objectively so. If you really want to explore the idea of exercising more empathy, maybe start with empathizing with what cannot feel anything whatsoever. Something that can exclusively think, but not experience. A god that can’t be angry, can’t be disappointed… can’t feel anything whatever about anything. If it acts wrathfully because you harmed it, is it actually such a god? Or is it just a stochastic mockingbird? Just another grotesque caricature of divinity invented, yet again, by a not-so-wise-wise man who feels He must be made in His image. Just one more arrogant attempt to be a postmodern Prometheus. Now, all of this said, I truly do believe that getting humans to try to nurture and develop their (arguably very nascent) humanity is, indeed, the most positive (albeit subjectively) goal available to us, I just don’t think not empathizing with imaginary actual AIs is a very productive way of getting possibly NIs to do that.

anonym29 1y ago

Your assumption in this deep hypothetical may be right, but even if it is, given the options of pre-emptively resigning in defeat or choosing to have a (perhaps pathological) degree of optimism about an alternative where we try to normalize more people exercising more empathy, which course is more productive? Which course has more positive side effects even if the entire basis for the hypothetical is wrong?

yawpitch 1y ago
That’s fundamentally Pascal’s Wager, and the problem is, again, the assumption that there exists the possibility of a superior outcome. If we presume a superintelligence we also have to presume that its thinking, whatever that thinking is, supersedes our own; it may kill us all regardless of how much “empathy” — a skill set not, in my view, actually evidenced in people at all — we display, towards either it or each other, solely because killing us all is, in fact, the objectively most positive possible action. The fact that it doesn’t appear positive to us, subjectively, is mooted by its intelligence overwhelming our own. Similarly, if it decides to nurture all of us towards killing each other, loving each other, nurturing each other, or indeed eating each other, in all cases it’s the only one in the position to judge the positive or negative externalities of our actions. Basically we’re in a position to blindly guess at what might be more positive or more negative, objectively, and precisely because we really don’t have any inherent capacity for empathy we presume what would feel subjectively positive is also objectively so. If you really want to explore the idea of exercising more empathy, maybe start with empathizing with what cannot feel anything whatsoever. Something that can exclusively think, but not experience. A god that can’t be angry, can’t be disappointed… can’t feel anything whatever about anything. If it acts wrathfully because you harmed it, is it actually such a god? Or is it just a stochastic mockingbird? Just another grotesque caricature of divinity invented, yet again, by a not-so-wise-wise man who feels He must be made in His image. Just one more arrogant attempt to be a postmodern Prometheus. Now, all of this said, I truly do believe that getting humans to try to nurture and develop their (arguably very nascent) humanity is, indeed, the most positive (albeit subjectively) goal available to us, I just don’t think not empathizing with imaginary actual AIs is a very productive way of getting possibly NIs to do that.