We’re trying to avoid names like “friendly” and “normative” that could reinforce someone’s impression that we think of AI risk in anthropomorphic terms, that we’re AI-hating technophobes, or that we’re moral philosophers.
Those are just three things we don’t necessarily want to be perceived as; they don’t necessarily share anything else in common. However, because the second one is pejorative and the first is sometimes treated as pejorative, the-citizen was wondering if I’m anti-moral-philosophy. I replied that highly anthropomorphic AI and moral philosophy are both perfectly good fields of study, and overlap at least a little with MIRI’s work; but the typical newcomer is likely to think these are more central to AGI safety work than they are.
the-citizen is replying to this thing I said:
Those are just three things we don’t necessarily want to be perceived as; they don’t necessarily share anything else in common. However, because the second one is pejorative and the first is sometimes treated as pejorative, the-citizen was wondering if I’m anti-moral-philosophy. I replied that highly anthropomorphic AI and moral philosophy are both perfectly good fields of study, and overlap at least a little with MIRI’s work; but the typical newcomer is likely to think these are more central to AGI safety work than they are.
For the record, my current position is that if MIRI doesn’t think it’s central, then it’s probably doing it wrong.