As far as I can tell Socrates was guilty of “failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges” though I am not a scholar on these issues. Unless I am badly misunderstanding the situation socrates actions don’t make a ton of sense to me. He was unwilling to flee Athens, which most accounts suggest he was somewhat expected to do. Yet he was willing to break the laws about “impeity.” I don’t quite understand his mindset, unless he didn’t mind breaking laws but was opposed to resisting enforcement? Some modern people suggest this ethic, for example viewing killing someone who is abusing your mother/daughter as ok if you then turn yourself in.
This does not seem like a suffient degree of friendliness for an AI. Even if the AI wasn’t going to resist when we tried to turn it off it could have done tremendous damage before anyone tries to shut it down. Metaphorically we want the AI to obey all our laws (so no “impeity”) not just consent to punishments.
An alternative viewing is that Socrates is friendly to the extent his actions actually helped Athens. Maybe he felt breaking the laws on impeity was helping the city but fleeing would be hurting the city. In this case his actions were friendly. For some defintions of friendly. At least he would be friendly in the sense a genie who can ask “I wish for what I should wish for” is friendly. Though this is problematic. Socrates has human values but its not clear his values are close enough to those of the Athenian population that his actions improve their wellbeing by their values.
As I understood some of the political oppoenents were opponents because they thought Socrates was a closet atheist. However for the articles purposes these both fall under the same “has too different values” category.
Socrates wasn’t that destructive and thought that his inquiries were for the good of the Athenean people. We also want an AI to follow the spirit of the law even when it conflicts with its letter.
Neither Plato nor Xenophon describe Socrates as someone who fails to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges. Even in Plato, any criticism of the traditional Greek religion is veiled, while in Xenophon Socrates’ religious views are completely orthodox.
On why Socrates didn’t choose exile, what Plato has Socrates say in Crito makes it sound like he thought fleeing would be harming the city. But I’m not sure that Socrates really makes a compelling case for why fleeing is bad anywhere in Plato’s account. In Xenophon’s version of the trial, Socrates also seems to think that a 70 year old only has a few more years of declining health left anyway, so it’s silly to go to any effort for such a meager “reward.”
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As far as I can tell Socrates was guilty of “failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges” though I am not a scholar on these issues. Unless I am badly misunderstanding the situation socrates actions don’t make a ton of sense to me. He was unwilling to flee Athens, which most accounts suggest he was somewhat expected to do. Yet he was willing to break the laws about “impeity.” I don’t quite understand his mindset, unless he didn’t mind breaking laws but was opposed to resisting enforcement? Some modern people suggest this ethic, for example viewing killing someone who is abusing your mother/daughter as ok if you then turn yourself in.
This does not seem like a suffient degree of friendliness for an AI. Even if the AI wasn’t going to resist when we tried to turn it off it could have done tremendous damage before anyone tries to shut it down. Metaphorically we want the AI to obey all our laws (so no “impeity”) not just consent to punishments.
An alternative viewing is that Socrates is friendly to the extent his actions actually helped Athens. Maybe he felt breaking the laws on impeity was helping the city but fleeing would be hurting the city. In this case his actions were friendly. For some defintions of friendly. At least he would be friendly in the sense a genie who can ask “I wish for what I should wish for” is friendly. Though this is problematic. Socrates has human values but its not clear his values are close enough to those of the Athenian population that his actions improve their wellbeing by their values.
As I understood some of the political oppoenents were opponents because they thought Socrates was a closet atheist. However for the articles purposes these both fall under the same “has too different values” category.
Socrates wasn’t that destructive and thought that his inquiries were for the good of the Athenean people. We also want an AI to follow the spirit of the law even when it conflicts with its letter.
Neither Plato nor Xenophon describe Socrates as someone who fails to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges. Even in Plato, any criticism of the traditional Greek religion is veiled, while in Xenophon Socrates’ religious views are completely orthodox.
On why Socrates didn’t choose exile, what Plato has Socrates say in Crito makes it sound like he thought fleeing would be harming the city. But I’m not sure that Socrates really makes a compelling case for why fleeing is bad anywhere in Plato’s account. In Xenophon’s version of the trial, Socrates also seems to think that a 70 year old only has a few more years of declining health left anyway, so it’s silly to go to any effort for such a meager “reward.”