An aligned AGI created by Taliban may behave very differently from an aligned AGI created by socialites of Berkeley, California.
Moreover, a sufficiently advanced aligned AGI may decide that even Berkeley socialites are wrong about a lot of things, if they actually want to help humanity.
Well, OK, but you also said “actually helps humanity”, which assumes some kind of outside view. And you used “aligned” without specifying any particular one of the conflicting visions of “alignment” that are out there.
I absolutely agree that “aligned with whom” is a huge issue. It’s one of the things that really bugs me about the word.
I do also agree that there are going to be irreconcilliable differences, and that, barring mind surgery to change their opinions, many people will be unhappy with whatever happens. That applies no matter what an AI does, and in fact no matter what anybody who’s “in charge” does. It applies even if nobody is in charge. But if somebody is in charge, it’s guaranteed that a lot of people will be very angry at that somebody. Sometimes all you can change is who is unhappy.
For example, a whole lot of Christians, Muslims, and possibly others believe that everybody who doesn’t wholeheartedly accept their religion is not only wrong, but also going to suffer in hell for eternity. Those religions are mutually contradictory at their cores. And a probably smaller but still large number of athiests believe that all religion is mindrot that intrinsically reduces the human dignity of anybody who accepts it.
You can’t solve that, no matter how smart you are. Favor one view and the other view loses. Favor none, and the other views say that a bunch of people are seriously harmed, even if it’s voluntary. It doesn’t even matter how you favor a view. Gentle persuasion is still a problem. OK, technically you can avoid people being mad about it after the fact by extreme mind surgery, but you can’t reconcile their original values. You can prevent violent conflict by sheer force, but you can’t remove the underlying issue.
Still, a lot of the approaches you describe are are pretty ham-handed even if you agree with the underlying values. Some of the desired outcomes you list even sound to me like good ideas… but you ought to be able to work toward those goals, even achieve them, without doing it in a way that pisses off the maximum possible number of people. So I guess I’m reacting to the extreme framing and the extreme measures. I don’t think the Taliban actively want people to be mad.
[Edited unusually heavily after posting because apparently I can’t produce coherent, low-typo text in the morning]
An aligned AGI created by Taliban may behave very differently from an aligned AGI created by socialites of Berkeley, California.
Moreover, a sufficiently advanced aligned AGI may decide that even Berkeley socialites are wrong about a lot of things, if they actually want to help humanity.
Well, OK, but you also said “actually helps humanity”, which assumes some kind of outside view. And you used “aligned” without specifying any particular one of the conflicting visions of “alignment” that are out there.
I absolutely agree that “aligned with whom” is a huge issue. It’s one of the things that really bugs me about the word.
I do also agree that there are going to be irreconcilliable differences, and that, barring mind surgery to change their opinions, many people will be unhappy with whatever happens. That applies no matter what an AI does, and in fact no matter what anybody who’s “in charge” does. It applies even if nobody is in charge. But if somebody is in charge, it’s guaranteed that a lot of people will be very angry at that somebody. Sometimes all you can change is who is unhappy.
For example, a whole lot of Christians, Muslims, and possibly others believe that everybody who doesn’t wholeheartedly accept their religion is not only wrong, but also going to suffer in hell for eternity. Those religions are mutually contradictory at their cores. And a probably smaller but still large number of athiests believe that all religion is mindrot that intrinsically reduces the human dignity of anybody who accepts it.
You can’t solve that, no matter how smart you are. Favor one view and the other view loses. Favor none, and the other views say that a bunch of people are seriously harmed, even if it’s voluntary. It doesn’t even matter how you favor a view. Gentle persuasion is still a problem. OK, technically you can avoid people being mad about it after the fact by extreme mind surgery, but you can’t reconcile their original values. You can prevent violent conflict by sheer force, but you can’t remove the underlying issue.
Still, a lot of the approaches you describe are are pretty ham-handed even if you agree with the underlying values. Some of the desired outcomes you list even sound to me like good ideas… but you ought to be able to work toward those goals, even achieve them, without doing it in a way that pisses off the maximum possible number of people. So I guess I’m reacting to the extreme framing and the extreme measures. I don’t think the Taliban actively want people to be mad.
[Edited unusually heavily after posting because apparently I can’t produce coherent, low-typo text in the morning]