AI value alignment is a hard problem, definitely. But it has one big advantage over politics, if we’re shopping for problems: it hasn’t been quite so optimized by memetic evolution for ability to take over a conversation.
I think talking about gender issues on LW, that time everyone talked about mostly gender issues for a while, was good (not as solving anything, but as a political act on the object level). But also, saying things like “we should be able to solve politics” is how you get struck by memetic Zeus’ lightning. SSC has a subreddit and another subreddit for a reason, and that reason isn’t because rationalists are so good at solving politics that they need two whole subreddits to do it in.
Building a calculator that adds 6+7 properly can be exceptionally difficult in an environment full of Triskaidekaphobes who want to smash it and harass it’s creators.
AI value alignment is a hard problem, definitely. But it has one big advantage over politics, if we’re shopping for problems: it hasn’t been quite so optimized by memetic evolution for ability to take over a conversation.
I think talking about gender issues on LW, that time everyone talked about mostly gender issues for a while, was good (not as solving anything, but as a political act on the object level). But also, saying things like “we should be able to solve politics” is how you get struck by memetic Zeus’ lightning. SSC has a subreddit and another subreddit for a reason, and that reason isn’t because rationalists are so good at solving politics that they need two whole subreddits to do it in.
I thought it was because the founder got tired of being harassed.
I think the whole thing is a very relevant case study. It should be investigated if we want to develop methods that will allow rationalists to discuss and understand object level politics. All CW threads were initially quarantined to a single thread on the subreddit. Then the entire thread needed to be moved to a separate subreddit.
Building a calculator that adds 6+7 properly can be exceptionally difficult in an environment full of Triskaidekaphobes who want to smash it and harass it’s creators.