A person who is kind to their friend and cruel to their enemies is not a “ruthless sociopath”. That’s not how the term “ruthless sociopath” is used in common parlance, and that’s not how I’m using it, and I don’t believe that even you personally would use the term that way in your everyday life.
I will rephrase what I think you’re trying to say:
“People who are not ruthless sociopaths are often nevertheless callous and cruel towards other people, especially their enemies. By the same token, even if ASI is NOT a ruthless sociopath, it still might be callous and cruel towards humans.”
I would heartily agree with that paragraph.
In this post I am making a strong claim that ASI will be a ruthless sociopath, because I think that strong claim is true and important. It’s possible that this strong claim is false, and yet ASI will kill everyone anyway, via any number of alternate pathways. But in this post I’m defending the strong claim, and I’d like to keep discussion centered on that.
I also don’t want to move the subject of the discussion from the one you intend.
If you think I’m doing that I’m happy to delete the rest of this comment.
I think it’s important to the topic you want to discuss that a lot of people at a lot of places for a lot of time did a lot of very cruel things to not just their enemies. Instead they did it because it was convenient or fun (including their friends).
I’ll skip details until requested.
To me it seems it’s opposite—very specific arrangement of incentives manages to limit human to being cruel mostly to enemies and those out of sight.
Which is relevant to figuring out how likely it is that ais will be ruthless sociopaths. I would be more optimistic about that if ~100% minds so far were not one (as opposed to 10-90% (quick estimate on how many people historically seem to have engaged in practices that indicate callous disregard for life of others as a matter of routine or entertainment)
OK, I guess we’re arguing about whether “intrinsically caring about other people” is a thing that exists in humans or not. Right? Well I think it does. This seems very obvious to me, and I’m puzzled if it doesn’t to you.
very specific arrangement of incentives manages to limit human to being cruel mostly to enemies and those out of sight
Here’s a scenario.
Alice is an elderly lady with just one daughter, Beth. Beth has a terminal illness, and is clearly about to die. (Alice is a retired hospice nurse, so she knows what “clearly about to die” looks like.) They are alone in a rural area with no phones or cameras, and there’s no chance that anyone else will arrive at the house before Beth dies (there’s a blizzard, the road will be impassable for the next few days).
Alice can (A) torture Beth just out of curiosity to see how Beth will respond, or (B) walk away from Beth to do the dishes, or (C) try to make Beth feel very comfortable and loved in her last moments of life.
There are no incentives here. No one will know either way.
My prediction is that the overwhelming majority of Alice’s (>90%) would choose (C). If you believe that people are nice only because of a “very specific arrangement of incentives”, then presumably you would guess that (C) would be very rare, and most Alice’s would choose (A) or (B).
I didn’t try to claim ‘“intrinsically caring about other people” is not a thing that exists in humans’. It does. I also think it’s not strong enough to do that much vs other incentives. It’s strong enough to in some places establish a system which in a buch of situations aligns other incentives with the drive.
And replying to your example: parent-child instincts are real so I’d expect Alice to care. But if roles were reversed a lot of people decide to not take care of their parents
A person who is kind to their friend and cruel to their enemies is not a “ruthless sociopath”. That’s not how the term “ruthless sociopath” is used in common parlance, and that’s not how I’m using it, and I don’t believe that even you personally would use the term that way in your everyday life.
I will rephrase what I think you’re trying to say:
“People who are not ruthless sociopaths are often nevertheless callous and cruel towards other people, especially their enemies. By the same token, even if ASI is NOT a ruthless sociopath, it still might be callous and cruel towards humans.”
I would heartily agree with that paragraph.
In this post I am making a strong claim that ASI will be a ruthless sociopath, because I think that strong claim is true and important. It’s possible that this strong claim is false, and yet ASI will kill everyone anyway, via any number of alternate pathways. But in this post I’m defending the strong claim, and I’d like to keep discussion centered on that.
I can’t say I agree with what you wrote.
I also don’t want to move the subject of the discussion from the one you intend.
If you think I’m doing that I’m happy to delete the rest of this comment.
I think it’s important to the topic you want to discuss that a lot of people at a lot of places for a lot of time did a lot of very cruel things to not just their enemies. Instead they did it because it was convenient or fun (including their friends).
I’ll skip details until requested.
To me it seems it’s opposite—very specific arrangement of incentives manages to limit human to being cruel mostly to enemies and those out of sight.
Which is relevant to figuring out how likely it is that ais will be ruthless sociopaths. I would be more optimistic about that if ~100% minds so far were not one (as opposed to 10-90% (quick estimate on how many people historically seem to have engaged in practices that indicate callous disregard for life of others as a matter of routine or entertainment)
OK, I guess we’re arguing about whether “intrinsically caring about other people” is a thing that exists in humans or not. Right? Well I think it does. This seems very obvious to me, and I’m puzzled if it doesn’t to you.
Here’s a scenario.
Alice is an elderly lady with just one daughter, Beth. Beth has a terminal illness, and is clearly about to die. (Alice is a retired hospice nurse, so she knows what “clearly about to die” looks like.) They are alone in a rural area with no phones or cameras, and there’s no chance that anyone else will arrive at the house before Beth dies (there’s a blizzard, the road will be impassable for the next few days).
Alice can (A) torture Beth just out of curiosity to see how Beth will respond, or (B) walk away from Beth to do the dishes, or (C) try to make Beth feel very comfortable and loved in her last moments of life.
There are no incentives here. No one will know either way.
My prediction is that the overwhelming majority of Alice’s (>90%) would choose (C). If you believe that people are nice only because of a “very specific arrangement of incentives”, then presumably you would guess that (C) would be very rare, and most Alice’s would choose (A) or (B).
Is that your belief?
I didn’t try to claim ‘“intrinsically caring about other people” is not a thing that exists in humans’. It does. I also think it’s not strong enough to do that much vs other incentives. It’s strong enough to in some places establish a system which in a buch of situations aligns other incentives with the drive.
And replying to your example: parent-child instincts are real so I’d expect Alice to care. But if roles were reversed a lot of people decide to not take care of their parents