I think questions like these are important, so thank you for thinking about and writing about this.
A hypothetical civilization which hasn’t observed signs of other life might also be able to find and understand these arguments. This includes the first civilization to create an ASI, if it has no way to know whether it’s the first.
If we accept this, then we may prefer to act as if we are the first, because we may think it best for (alien) civilizations in general to act as if they are the first, to ensure that the actual first one acts appropriately. (i.e., creating an aligned ASI, when the alternative would be an unaligned ASI tiling the universe). You could frame this as a form of acausal trade.
I apologize if this is confusing, I’m autistic and struggle with reducing meaning into language that others understand. Please let me know if you need clarification.
Interesting, thanks! This is relevant to question #2 in the post! Not sure everyone should act as if they were the first considering the downsides of interciv conflicts, but yeah, that’s a good point.
I think questions like these are important, so thank you for thinking about and writing about this.
A hypothetical civilization which hasn’t observed signs of other life might also be able to find and understand these arguments. This includes the first civilization to create an ASI, if it has no way to know whether it’s the first.
If we accept this, then we may prefer to act as if we are the first, because we may think it best for (alien) civilizations in general to act as if they are the first, to ensure that the actual first one acts appropriately. (i.e., creating an aligned ASI, when the alternative would be an unaligned ASI tiling the universe). You could frame this as a form of acausal trade.
I apologize if this is confusing, I’m autistic and struggle with reducing meaning into language that others understand. Please let me know if you need clarification.
Interesting, thanks! This is relevant to question #2 in the post! Not sure everyone should act as if they were the first considering the downsides of interciv conflicts, but yeah, that’s a good point.