Type 1: takes a lot of prioritization. Going to the gym four times a week falls into this category. It’s not particularly difficult, but it does take a lot of effort.
Type 2: takes a large amount of skill, where your skill is capped somehow. There are some things I’m just not skilled enough to do, even if I really had to. I could not land a Boeing 767 if everyone else on the plane was unconscious.
Type 3: induces a lot of suffering. I used to feel an enormous amount of discomfort and suffering when taking finger-prick blood tests. They only took ~half an hour to do at home, but it was some of the strongest discomfort I ever felt.
Practice, to a point, moves type 2 difficulty into type 1 difficulty. At the tail end, type 1 difficulty shades into type 3 difficulty, because prioritization becomes unpleasant (if I had to pay £3000/mo to service some debt, that would be one thing, if I had to sell my house and live on the streets, that would be another thing).
Most of the time, being a good person is type 1 or occasionally type 3. If you’re in a situation where doing the right thing is type 2, then you’re in a bad, bad spot. I think lots of people in the AI ecosystem are in situations where doing the right thing morally is type 2, which is unusual.
Ways in which something can be “hard”
Type 1: takes a lot of prioritization. Going to the gym four times a week falls into this category. It’s not particularly difficult, but it does take a lot of effort.
Type 2: takes a large amount of skill, where your skill is capped somehow. There are some things I’m just not skilled enough to do, even if I really had to. I could not land a Boeing 767 if everyone else on the plane was unconscious.
Type 3: induces a lot of suffering. I used to feel an enormous amount of discomfort and suffering when taking finger-prick blood tests. They only took ~half an hour to do at home, but it was some of the strongest discomfort I ever felt.
Practice, to a point, moves type 2 difficulty into type 1 difficulty. At the tail end, type 1 difficulty shades into type 3 difficulty, because prioritization becomes unpleasant (if I had to pay £3000/mo to service some debt, that would be one thing, if I had to sell my house and live on the streets, that would be another thing).
Most of the time, being a good person is type 1 or occasionally type 3. If you’re in a situation where doing the right thing is type 2, then you’re in a bad, bad spot. I think lots of people in the AI ecosystem are in situations where doing the right thing morally is type 2, which is unusual.