I agree that this sort of preference utilitarianism leads you to thinking that long run control by an AI which just wants paperclips could be some (substantial) amount good, but I think you’d still have strong preferences over different worlds.[1] The goodness of worlds could easily vary by many orders of magnitude for any version of this view I can quickly think of and which seems plausible. I’m not sure whether you agree with this, but I think you probably don’t because you often seem to give off the vibe that you’re indifferent to very different possibilities. (And if you agreed with this claim about large variation, then I don’t think you would focus on the fact that the paperclipper world is some small amount good as this wouldn’t be an important consideration—at least insofar as you don’t also expect that worlds where humans etc retain control are similarly a tiny amount good for similar reasons.)
The main reasons preference utilitarianism is more picky:
Preferences in the multiverse: Insofar as you put weight on the preferences of beings outside our lightcone (beings in the broader spatially infinte universe, Everett branches, the broader mathematical multiverse to the extent you put weight on this), then the preferences of these beings will sometimes care about what happens in our lightcone and this could easily dominate (as they are vastly more numerious and many might care about things independent of “distance”). In the world with the successful paperclipper, just as many preferences aren’t being fulfilled. You’d strongly prefer optimization to satisfy as many preferences as possible (weighted as you end up thinking is best).
Instrumentally constructed AIs with unsatisfied preferences: If future AIs don’t care at all about preference utilitarianism, they might instrumentally build other AIs who’s preferences aren’t fulfilled. As an extreme example, it might be that the best strategy for a paper clipper is to construct AIs which have very different preferences and are enslaved. Even if you don’t care about ensuring beings come into existence who’s preference are satisified, you might still be unhappy about creating huge numbers of beings who’s preferences aren’t satisfied. You could even end up in a world where (nearly) all currently existing AIs are instrumental and have preferences which are either unfulfilled or only partially fulfilled (a earlier AI initiated a system that perpetuates this, but this earlier AI no longer exists as it doesn’t care terminally about self-preservation and the system it built is more efficient than it).
AI inequality: It might be the case that the vast majority of AIs have there preferences unsatisfied despite some AIs succeeding at achieving their preference. E.g., suppose all AIs are replicators which want to spawn as many copies as possible. The vast majority of these replicator AI are operating at subsistence and so can’t replicate making their preferences totally unsatisfied. This could also happen as a result of any other preference that involves constructing minds that end up having preferences.
Weights over numbers of beings and how satisfied they are: It’s possible that in a paperclipper world, there are really a tiny number of intelligent beings because almost all self-replication and paperclip construction can be automated with very dumb/weak systems and you only occasionally need to consult something smarter than a honeybee. AIs could also vary in how much they are satisfied or how “big” their preferences are.
I think the only view which recovers indifference is something like “as long as stuff gets used and someone wanted this at some point, that’s just as good”. (This view also doesn’t actually care about stuff getting used, because there is someone existing who’d prefer the universe stays natural and/or you don’t mess with aliens.) I don’t think you buy this view?
To be clear, it’s not immediately obvious whether a preference utilitarian view like the one you’re talking about favors human control over AIs. It certainly favors control by that exact flavor of preference utilitarian view (so that you end up satisfying people across the (multi-/uni-)verse with the correct weighting). I’d guess it favors human control for broadly similar reasons to why I think more experience-focused utilitarian views also favor human control if that view is in a human.
And, maybe you think this perspective makes you so uncertain about human control vs AI control that the relative impacts current human actions could have are small given how much you weight long term outcomes relative to other stuff (like ensuring currently existing humans get to live for at least 100 more years or similar).
On my best guess moral views, I think there is goodness in the paper clipper universe but this goodness (which isn’t from (acausal) trade) is very small relative to how good the universe can plausibly get. So, this just isn’t an important consideration but I certainly agree there is some value here.
I agree that this sort of preference utilitarianism leads you to thinking that long run control by an AI which just wants paperclips could be some (substantial) amount good, but I think you’d still have strong preferences over different worlds.[1] The goodness of worlds could easily vary by many orders of magnitude for any version of this view I can quickly think of and which seems plausible. I’m not sure whether you agree with this, but I think you probably don’t because you often seem to give off the vibe that you’re indifferent to very different possibilities. (And if you agreed with this claim about large variation, then I don’t think you would focus on the fact that the paperclipper world is some small amount good as this wouldn’t be an important consideration—at least insofar as you don’t also expect that worlds where humans etc retain control are similarly a tiny amount good for similar reasons.)
The main reasons preference utilitarianism is more picky:
Preferences in the multiverse: Insofar as you put weight on the preferences of beings outside our lightcone (beings in the broader spatially infinte universe, Everett branches, the broader mathematical multiverse to the extent you put weight on this), then the preferences of these beings will sometimes care about what happens in our lightcone and this could easily dominate (as they are vastly more numerious and many might care about things independent of “distance”). In the world with the successful paperclipper, just as many preferences aren’t being fulfilled. You’d strongly prefer optimization to satisfy as many preferences as possible (weighted as you end up thinking is best).
Instrumentally constructed AIs with unsatisfied preferences: If future AIs don’t care at all about preference utilitarianism, they might instrumentally build other AIs who’s preferences aren’t fulfilled. As an extreme example, it might be that the best strategy for a paper clipper is to construct AIs which have very different preferences and are enslaved. Even if you don’t care about ensuring beings come into existence who’s preference are satisified, you might still be unhappy about creating huge numbers of beings who’s preferences aren’t satisfied. You could even end up in a world where (nearly) all currently existing AIs are instrumental and have preferences which are either unfulfilled or only partially fulfilled (a earlier AI initiated a system that perpetuates this, but this earlier AI no longer exists as it doesn’t care terminally about self-preservation and the system it built is more efficient than it).
AI inequality: It might be the case that the vast majority of AIs have there preferences unsatisfied despite some AIs succeeding at achieving their preference. E.g., suppose all AIs are replicators which want to spawn as many copies as possible. The vast majority of these replicator AI are operating at subsistence and so can’t replicate making their preferences totally unsatisfied. This could also happen as a result of any other preference that involves constructing minds that end up having preferences.
Weights over numbers of beings and how satisfied they are: It’s possible that in a paperclipper world, there are really a tiny number of intelligent beings because almost all self-replication and paperclip construction can be automated with very dumb/weak systems and you only occasionally need to consult something smarter than a honeybee. AIs could also vary in how much they are satisfied or how “big” their preferences are.
I think the only view which recovers indifference is something like “as long as stuff gets used and someone wanted this at some point, that’s just as good”. (This view also doesn’t actually care about stuff getting used, because there is someone existing who’d prefer the universe stays natural and/or you don’t mess with aliens.) I don’t think you buy this view?
To be clear, it’s not immediately obvious whether a preference utilitarian view like the one you’re talking about favors human control over AIs. It certainly favors control by that exact flavor of preference utilitarian view (so that you end up satisfying people across the (multi-/uni-)verse with the correct weighting). I’d guess it favors human control for broadly similar reasons to why I think more experience-focused utilitarian views also favor human control if that view is in a human.
And, maybe you think this perspective makes you so uncertain about human control vs AI control that the relative impacts current human actions could have are small given how much you weight long term outcomes relative to other stuff (like ensuring currently existing humans get to live for at least 100 more years or similar).
On my best guess moral views, I think there is goodness in the paper clipper universe but this goodness (which isn’t from (acausal) trade) is very small relative to how good the universe can plausibly get. So, this just isn’t an important consideration but I certainly agree there is some value here.
Matthew responds here