(a sharp distinction from Sniffles the teacup poodle. I don’t care if you think you’re happy, this would not please the prowling wolves of the stone age.)
I have issues with this: I don’t think you can claim that wildcats of the stone age would be pleased with what we’ve done to domestic cats either, sticking them in tiny territories where they cannot roam, kingdoms of a cage. I’m not sure using human judgement in this matter is very useful as we don’t have a good concept of what other species value.
I don’t think evolutionary pressure is an intelligence; it’s in the name. It’s a pressure, like air pressure or water pressure, not an intelligence. There is no agency. The end results can be marvelous all the same. Evolution appears to make FDT-style trades, but is actually completely myopic. It’s survival of the survivors. If you’re dead, we don’t see you.
Also sociality in spiders has evolved independently at least twenty times, and keeps going extinct. It’s probably an evolutionary dead end due to inbreeding [1]. Evolution is completely myopic.
no one is building rooms full of cats on heroin.
We do, however, build rooms full of cats and catnip.
I don’t think evolutionary pressure is an intelligence; it’s in the name. It’s a pressure, like air pressure or water pressure, not an intelligence. There is no agency. The end results can be marvelous all the same. Evolution appears to make FDT-style trades, but is actually completely myopic. It’s survival of the survivors. If you’re dead, we don’t see you.
I don’t think we are materially disagreeing here, just working with very slight differences in definition of intelligence. I see a strong analogy to the debate between whether LLMs think or LLMs just predict the next token. I think that your claims that “There is no agency” and evolution is “completely myopic” are true for some reasonable definitions of agency and myopia, as long as you don’t make any arguments like “There is no agency / complete myopia, therefore evolution can’t X.” You aren’t making any such arguments, hence the lack of material disagreement.
On the subject of cats being deprived of roaming and hopped up on catnip, yeah I would not love that either, but the contrast to the outcomes for cows or chickens is big. Getting alignment close enough that the result is preferable to going extinct is a high bar. To reiterate, we could also just stop, but that would be ludicrous.
I don’t think you can claim that wildcats of the stone age would be pleased with what we’ve done to domestic cats either, sticking them in tiny territories where they cannot roam, kingdoms of a cage. I’m not sure using human judgement in this matter is very useful as we don’t have a good concept of what other species value.
Just one factor, but the life expectancy of domestic dogs and cats is generally higher than their wild progenitors. I agree we can’t know for sure, but I would guess this with limitless food and good healthcare, and less worry about being attacked at night would mean the subjective wellbeing of domesticated cats and dogs is higher than the wild ones, despite less freedom.
I have issues with this: I don’t think you can claim that wildcats of the stone age would be pleased with what we’ve done to domestic cats either, sticking them in tiny territories where they cannot roam, kingdoms of a cage. I’m not sure using human judgement in this matter is very useful as we don’t have a good concept of what other species value.
I don’t think evolutionary pressure is an intelligence; it’s in the name. It’s a pressure, like air pressure or water pressure, not an intelligence. There is no agency. The end results can be marvelous all the same. Evolution appears to make FDT-style trades, but is actually completely myopic. It’s survival of the survivors. If you’re dead, we don’t see you.
Also sociality in spiders has evolved independently at least twenty times, and keeps going extinct. It’s probably an evolutionary dead end due to inbreeding [1]. Evolution is completely myopic.
We do, however, build rooms full of cats and catnip.
I don’t think we are materially disagreeing here, just working with very slight differences in definition of intelligence. I see a strong analogy to the debate between whether LLMs think or LLMs just predict the next token. I think that your claims that “There is no agency” and evolution is “completely myopic” are true for some reasonable definitions of agency and myopia, as long as you don’t make any arguments like “There is no agency / complete myopia, therefore evolution can’t X.” You aren’t making any such arguments, hence the lack of material disagreement.
On the subject of cats being deprived of roaming and hopped up on catnip, yeah I would not love that either, but the contrast to the outcomes for cows or chickens is big. Getting alignment close enough that the result is preferable to going extinct is a high bar. To reiterate, we could also just stop, but that would be ludicrous.
Just one factor, but the life expectancy of domestic dogs and cats is generally higher than their wild progenitors. I agree we can’t know for sure, but I would guess this with limitless food and good healthcare, and less worry about being attacked at night would mean the subjective wellbeing of domesticated cats and dogs is higher than the wild ones, despite less freedom.