I found this post confusing and frustrating. I disagree with successionism and was hoping for a thoughtful critique of it, but every argument you made seemed to amount to pointing at an successionist idea (or a strawman of it) and asserting that it is wrong for an unstated reason that must be obvious to you, but is not remotely obvious to me.
For example, the “Forest Successionist” is clearly correct, and it’s not so much that I disagree with the anti-successionist as it is that I am at a loss to imagine what their worldview even is. Surely they can’t be arguing that it is impossible to improve forests, or that we must preserve all forests exactly as they are now forever, but I have no better guesses.
We must disagree on axioms so foundational that you never considered they need to be defended, or even stated.
Towards the end of the post you say something that reveals one of our axiomatic disagreements, though surely there are others:
Now let’s rephrase the argument for experiential successionism. It goes something like this: “I may think I have the right to remain a player in the world, and propagate my line of existence by having children and having my children have children and so forth. But instead we could have a superior AI, objectively better than me or any human, dominate the world and replace us and sire the beings that control the future in our stead. Just think of how infinitely superior the AI could be. Doesn’t that fill you with desire? Aren’t you just itching to let them do it?”
You see your distant biological descendants as “us” and the AI successors as “them.” Your framework is so self-evident to you that you imagine even your ideological opponents sharing it. But I don’t feel any more attachment towards a hypothetical civilization of humans 10,000 years from now than a hypothetical civilization of posthuman AI. I expect neither to be more similar to my present values on the metrics that matter. Neither are “us.” I am interested in the continuation of my personal existence, but I couldn’t give a shit about my line of existence, certainly not in the specific and narrow way you’ve defined it.
I am interested in the continuation of my personal existence, but I couldn’t give a shit about my line of existence, certainly not in the specific and narrow way you’ve defined it.
So when deciding whether to have a baby or a robot (assume you can’t have both), you would throw a coin?
I personally do not plan on having children because I would rather spend my time working on other things, including robots, if this answers the question.
I don’t think robots as they exist now are generally superior to babies. We haven’t solved humanoid robotics yet or general-purpose high-dexterity robots really, nor do I believe existing robots are capable of conscious experience.
I found this post confusing and frustrating. I disagree with successionism and was hoping for a thoughtful critique of it, but every argument you made seemed to amount to pointing at an successionist idea (or a strawman of it) and asserting that it is wrong for an unstated reason that must be obvious to you, but is not remotely obvious to me.
For example, the “Forest Successionist” is clearly correct, and it’s not so much that I disagree with the anti-successionist as it is that I am at a loss to imagine what their worldview even is. Surely they can’t be arguing that it is impossible to improve forests, or that we must preserve all forests exactly as they are now forever, but I have no better guesses.
We must disagree on axioms so foundational that you never considered they need to be defended, or even stated.
Towards the end of the post you say something that reveals one of our axiomatic disagreements, though surely there are others:
You see your distant biological descendants as “us” and the AI successors as “them.” Your framework is so self-evident to you that you imagine even your ideological opponents sharing it. But I don’t feel any more attachment towards a hypothetical civilization of humans 10,000 years from now than a hypothetical civilization of posthuman AI. I expect neither to be more similar to my present values on the metrics that matter. Neither are “us.” I am interested in the continuation of my personal existence, but I couldn’t give a shit about my line of existence, certainly not in the specific and narrow way you’ve defined it.
So when deciding whether to have a baby or a robot (assume you can’t have both), you would throw a coin?
I personally do not plan on having children because I would rather spend my time working on other things, including robots, if this answers the question.
I don’t think robots as they exist now are generally superior to babies. We haven’t solved humanoid robotics yet or general-purpose high-dexterity robots really, nor do I believe existing robots are capable of conscious experience.
I think the majority of people would much rather have a baby than a robot, even if it were a robot which you called “superior” to babies.
That’s probably false. A robot that was “superior” to babies would be an incredible invention that would make you rich and famous.