The argument people make is that LLMs improve the productivity of people’s safety research so it’s worth paying. That kinda makes sense. But I do think “don’t give money to the people doing bad things” is a strong heuristic.
I’m a pretty big believer in utilitarianism but I also think people should be more wary of consequentialist justifications for doing bad things. Eliezer talks about this in Ends Don’t Justify Means (Among Humans), he’s also written some (IMO stronger) arguments elsewhere but I don’t recall where.
Basically, if I had a nickel for every time someone made a consequentialist argument for why doing a bad thing was net positive, and then it turned out to be net negative, I’d be rich enough to diversify EA funding away from Good Ventures.
I have previously paid for LLM subscriptions (I don’t have any currently) but I think I was not giving enough consideration to the “ends don’t justify means among humans” principle, so I will not buy any subscriptions in the future.
The argument people make is that LLMs improve the productivity of people’s safety research so it’s worth paying. That kinda makes sense. But I do think “don’t give money to the people doing bad things” is a strong heuristic.
I’m a pretty big believer in utilitarianism but I also think people should be more wary of consequentialist justifications for doing bad things. Eliezer talks about this in Ends Don’t Justify Means (Among Humans), he’s also written some (IMO stronger) arguments elsewhere but I don’t recall where.
Basically, if I had a nickel for every time someone made a consequentialist argument for why doing a bad thing was net positive, and then it turned out to be net negative, I’d be rich enough to diversify EA funding away from Good Ventures.
I have previously paid for LLM subscriptions (I don’t have any currently) but I think I was not giving enough consideration to the “ends don’t justify means among humans” principle, so I will not buy any subscriptions in the future.