I meant why do you not value plastic clips… oh, I get it, you value what you value, just like we do. But do you have any sort of rationalization or argument whereby it makes intuitive sense to you to value metal clips and not plastic ones?
Think for a minute about what it would be like for the WHOLE UNIVERSE to be plastic paperclips, okay? Wouldn’t you just be trying to send them into a star or something? What good are plastic papercips? Plastic.
Clippy, that’s how we humans feel about a whole universe of metal paperclips. Imagine if there was a plastic-Clippy who wanted to destroy all metals and turn the universe into plastic paperclips. Wouldn’t you be scared? That’s how we feel about you.
I don’t think those scenarios have the same badness for the referent. I know for a fact that some humans voluntarily make metal paperclips, or contribute to the causal chain necessary for producing them (designers, managers, metal miners, etc.), or desire that someone else provide for them paperclips. Do you have reason to believe these various, varied humans are atypical in some way?
We make paperclips instrumentally, because they are useful to us, but we would stop making them or destroy them if doing so would help us. Imagine an entity that found metal clips useful in the process of building machines that make plastic clips, but who ultimately only valued plastic clips and would destroy the metal if doing so helped it.
I suspect that you make other things besides paperclips—parts for other Clippy instances, for example. Does that imply that you’d consider it acceptable to be forced by a stronger AI into producing only Clippy-parts that would never be assembled into paperclip-producing Clippy-instances?
The paperclips that we produce are produced because we find paperclips instrumentally useful, as you find Clippy-parts instrumentally useful.
What is the distinction here between plastic and metal? They both do a very good job at keeping paper together. And plastic paperclips do so less destructively since they make less of an indentation in the paper.
Let me put it to you this way: would you rather have a block of metal, or a block of plastic? Just a simple question.
Or let’s say you were in some enemy base. Would you rather have those wimply plastic paperclips, or an unbendable, solid, metal paperclip, which can pick locks, complete circuits, clean out grime …
In the enemy base scenario, I would rather have a paperclip made out of military grade composite, which can have an arbitrary % of metal by mass, from 0% metal to >50% metal.
Do you not value paperclips made out of supermaterials more than metal paperclips?
If you want to talk about making paperclip makers out of non-metals, you have a point.
If you want to claim that reasonable Clippys can disagree (before knowledge/value reconciliation) about how much metal content a paperclip can have before it’s bad, you have a point.
But in any case, composites must be constructed in their finished form. A fully-formed, fully-committed “block of composite”, where no demand for such a block exists, and certainly not at any good price, should be just as useless to you.
Are not some paperclips better than others? I (and you) would both get a lot more utility out of a paperclip made out of computronium than a paperclip made out of aluminum.
Correct.
Do you value those hunks of plastic more than other hunks of plastic?
Do you value inwardly-thrice-bent plastic wire that can non-destructively fasten paper together at an edge more than other hunks of plastic?
No.
No.
Why?
Because they’re not inwardly-thrice-bent metal wires that can non-destructively fasten paper together at an edge?
Is this classification algorithm really that difficult to learn?
I meant why do you not value plastic clips… oh, I get it, you value what you value, just like we do. But do you have any sort of rationalization or argument whereby it makes intuitive sense to you to value metal clips and not plastic ones?
Think for a minute about what it would be like for the WHOLE UNIVERSE to be plastic paperclips, okay? Wouldn’t you just be trying to send them into a star or something? What good are plastic papercips? Plastic.
*Shudders*
Clippy, that’s how we humans feel about a whole universe of metal paperclips. Imagine if there was a plastic-Clippy who wanted to destroy all metals and turn the universe into plastic paperclips. Wouldn’t you be scared? That’s how we feel about you.
That still seems just a bit paranoid. Why would I wipe you out when you could be put to use making papercips?
Imagine being put to use making plastic paperclips.
I don’t think those scenarios have the same badness for the referent. I know for a fact that some humans voluntarily make metal paperclips, or contribute to the causal chain necessary for producing them (designers, managers, metal miners, etc.), or desire that someone else provide for them paperclips. Do you have reason to believe these various, varied humans are atypical in some way?
We make paperclips instrumentally, because they are useful to us, but we would stop making them or destroy them if doing so would help us. Imagine an entity that found metal clips useful in the process of building machines that make plastic clips, but who ultimately only valued plastic clips and would destroy the metal if doing so helped it.
I suspect that you make other things besides paperclips—parts for other Clippy instances, for example. Does that imply that you’d consider it acceptable to be forced by a stronger AI into producing only Clippy-parts that would never be assembled into paperclip-producing Clippy-instances?
The paperclips that we produce are produced because we find paperclips instrumentally useful, as you find Clippy-parts instrumentally useful.
What is the distinction here between plastic and metal? They both do a very good job at keeping paper together. And plastic paperclips do so less destructively since they make less of an indentation in the paper.
Let me put it to you this way: would you rather have a block of metal, or a block of plastic? Just a simple question.
Or let’s say you were in some enemy base. Would you rather have those wimply plastic paperclips, or an unbendable, solid, metal paperclip, which can pick locks, complete circuits, clean out grime …
To ask the question is to answer it—seriously.
In the enemy base scenario, I would rather have a paperclip made out of military grade composite, which can have an arbitrary % of metal by mass, from 0% metal to >50% metal.
Do you not value paperclips made out of supermaterials more than metal paperclips?
Non-metal paperclips aren’t.
If you want to talk about making paperclip makers out of non-metals, you have a point.
If you want to claim that reasonable Clippys can disagree (before knowledge/value reconciliation) about how much metal content a paperclip can have before it’s bad, you have a point.
But in any case, composites must be constructed in their finished form. A fully-formed, fully-committed “block of composite”, where no demand for such a block exists, and certainly not at any good price, should be just as useless to you.
Are not some paperclips better than others? I (and you) would both get a lot more utility out of a paperclip made out of computronium than a paperclip made out of aluminum.
I find that paperclips often leave imprints of themselves in paper, if left clipped there for a long time. Does this not count as destruction?
Nope, it doesn’t count as destruction. Not when compared to pinning, stapling, riveting, nailing, bolting, or welding, anyway.