It’s not just CEV and recursive self-modification, either. CEV only works on individuals and (many) individuals will FOOM once they acquire FAI. If individuals don’t FOOM into FAI’s (and I see no reason that they would choose to do so) we need a fully general moral/political theory that individuals can use to cooperate in a post-singularity world. How does ownership work when individuals suddenly have the ability to manipulate matter and energy on much greater scales than even governments can today? Can individuals clone themselves in unlimited number? Who actually owns solar and interstellar resources? I may trust a FAI to implement CEV for an individual but I don’t necessarily trust it to implement a fair universal political system; that’s asking me to put too much faith in a process that won’t have sufficient input until it’s too late. If every individual FOOMed at the same rate perhaps CEV could be used over all of humanity to derive a fair political system, but that situation seems highly unlikely. The most advanced individuals will want and need the most obscure and strange sounding things and current humans will simply be unable to fully evaluate their requests and the implications of agreeing to them.
I think we have the same sentiment, though we may be using different terminology. To paraphrase Eliezer on CEV, “Not to trust the self of this passing moment, but to try to extrapolate a me who knew more, thought faster, and were more the person I wished I were. Such a person might be able to avoid the fundamental errors. And still fearful that I bore the stamp of my mistakes, I should include all of the world in my extrapolation.” Basically, I believe there is no CEV except the entire whole of human morality. Though I do admit that CEV has a hard problem in the case of mutually conflicting desires.
If you hold CEV a personal rather than universal, then I agree that the SIAI should work on that ‘universal CEV’, whatever it be named.
I just re-read EY’s CEV paper and noticed that I had forgotten quite a bit since the last time I read it. He goes over most of the things I whined about. My lingering complaint/worry is that human desires won’t converge, but so long as CEV just says “fail” in that case instead of “become X maximizers” we can potentially start over with individual or smaller-group CEV. A thought experiment I have in mind is what would happen if more than one group of humans independently invented FAI at the same time. Would the FAIs merge, cooperate, or fight?
I guess I am also not quite sure how FAI will actively prevent other AI projects or whole brain simulations or other FOOMable things, or if that’s even the point. I guess it may be up to humans to ask the FAI how to prevent existential risks and then implement the solutions themselves.
It’s not just CEV and recursive self-modification, either. CEV only works on individuals and (many) individuals will FOOM once they acquire FAI. If individuals don’t FOOM into FAI’s (and I see no reason that they would choose to do so) we need a fully general moral/political theory that individuals can use to cooperate in a post-singularity world. How does ownership work when individuals suddenly have the ability to manipulate matter and energy on much greater scales than even governments can today? Can individuals clone themselves in unlimited number? Who actually owns solar and interstellar resources? I may trust a FAI to implement CEV for an individual but I don’t necessarily trust it to implement a fair universal political system; that’s asking me to put too much faith in a process that won’t have sufficient input until it’s too late. If every individual FOOMed at the same rate perhaps CEV could be used over all of humanity to derive a fair political system, but that situation seems highly unlikely. The most advanced individuals will want and need the most obscure and strange sounding things and current humans will simply be unable to fully evaluate their requests and the implications of agreeing to them.
I think we have the same sentiment, though we may be using different terminology. To paraphrase Eliezer on CEV, “Not to trust the self of this passing moment, but to try to extrapolate a me who knew more, thought faster, and were more the person I wished I were. Such a person might be able to avoid the fundamental errors. And still fearful that I bore the stamp of my mistakes, I should include all of the world in my extrapolation.” Basically, I believe there is no CEV except the entire whole of human morality. Though I do admit that CEV has a hard problem in the case of mutually conflicting desires.
If you hold CEV a personal rather than universal, then I agree that the SIAI should work on that ‘universal CEV’, whatever it be named.
I just re-read EY’s CEV paper and noticed that I had forgotten quite a bit since the last time I read it. He goes over most of the things I whined about. My lingering complaint/worry is that human desires won’t converge, but so long as CEV just says “fail” in that case instead of “become X maximizers” we can potentially start over with individual or smaller-group CEV. A thought experiment I have in mind is what would happen if more than one group of humans independently invented FAI at the same time. Would the FAIs merge, cooperate, or fight?
I guess I am also not quite sure how FAI will actively prevent other AI projects or whole brain simulations or other FOOMable things, or if that’s even the point. I guess it may be up to humans to ask the FAI how to prevent existential risks and then implement the solutions themselves.