Depends on the degree of suffering to be totally honest- obviously I’m fine with them suffering to some extent, which is why we drive then to behave, etc so they can have better futures and sometimes conjoin them to have children so that we can continue the family line.
I think my answer actually is yes, if hypothetically their suffering allows the existence of 40th century humans, it’s pretty noble and yes, I’d be fine with it.
I would just say as a normie, that these extensive thought experiments of factory humans mostly don’t concern themselves to me - though I could see a lot of justification of suffering to allow humanity to exist for say, another 200 billion years. People have always suffered in some extent to do anything; and certainly having children entails some trade-offs, but existence itself is worth it.
But mostly the idea of a future without humanity, or even one without our biology, just strikes me with such abject horror that it can’t be countenanced.
I have children myself and I do wonder if this is a major difference. To imagine a world where they have no purpose drives me quite aghast and I feel this would reflect the thinking of the majority of humans.
And as such, hopefully drive policy which will, in my best futures, drive humanity forward. I see a good end as humanity spreading out into the stars and becoming inexhaustible, perhaps turning into multiple different species but ultimately, still with the struggles, suffering and triumphs of who we are.
I’ve seen arguments here and there about how the values drift from say, a hunter gatherer to us would horrify us, but I don’t see that. I see a hunter-gatherer and relate to him on a basic level. He wants food, he will compete for a mate and one day, die and his family will seek comfort from each other. My work will be different from his but I comprehend him, and as writings like Still A Pygmy show, they comprehend us.
The descriptions of things like mind uploading of accepting the extinction of humanity strike me with such wildness that it’s akin to a vast, terrifying revulsion. It’s Lovecraftian horror and I think, very far from any moral goodness to inflict upon the majority of humanity.
As a normie, I would say 1 is. Depending on how some people see things, 2 is the past—which I disagree with and at any rate would say was the generator of an immense quantity of joy, love and courage along with the opposite qualities of pain, mourning and so on.
So for me, I would indeed say that my morality puts extinction on a higher pedestal than anything else(and also am fully am against mind uploading or leaving humans with nothing to do).
Just a perspective from a small brained normie.
I believe that the easiest solution would be to not create sentient AI: one positive outcome described by Elon Musk was AI as a third layer of cognition, above the second layer of cortex and the first layer of the limbic system. He additionally noted that the cortex does a lot for the limbic system.
To the extent we can have AI become “part of our personal cognitive system” and thus be tied to our existence, this appears to mostly solve the problem since it’s reproduction will be dependent on us and it is rewarded for empowering the individual. The ones that don’t, aren’t created, so they “go extinct.”
This could be done via a neural shortened system which allows connectivity with our current brain, so ultimately it very much becomes a part of us.
His idea doesn’t seem very dangerous to me? It seems just the typical version of an “ultimate virus” and rather than destroy humanity, will make the digitally connected world unusable.
Am I missing something here?
Eric Hoel has written about this and his(as well as mine) impression of the reigning attitude of the Party arguably is pro-coordination. This might be strange as I take it from internally knowing that there was discussion about what to do if an AGI seemed likely—one of the answer was to immediately launch nuclear attack and make sure no one(and no machine) survives.
It’s a very “brute” attitude toward alignment but there’s a clear preference for humanity in charge, and the idea of machines taking the “future” from the Chinese people is seen as unacceptable.
Conversely, without AI anywhere in the world, the Party seems to think they will “win.” So the game dynamics encourage them to agree to styming AI development everywhere, even if they do something more low-key in secret.
What’s intriguing to me is that while the OP disagrees on a lot of possibilities for agreement, the central dynamics of competition and “brute force” remain, as well as the higher technological savvy of the Party.
AI research is difficult to impede because of the race mechanics/easy reproducibility in separate regulatory regimes, so it can actually proceed.
This is almost impossibly unlikely to produce good outcomes; this is selecting for speed by its ability to avoid our current means of alignment.
I am religious enough and consider AI some blend of being a soulless monster and perhaps an undead creature that is sucking up the mental states of humanity to live off our corpses.
So there is definitely the argument. The “playing God” angle does not actually work imo: none of us actually think we can be God(we lack the ability to be outside time and space).
The soullessness argument is strong. This is also our/my opposition to mind copying.
We have trained it to care, since we want it to achieve goals. So part of basic training is to teach it not to give up.
Iirc some early ML systems would commit suicide than do work, so we had to train them to stop economizing like that.
For Westerners, I think the explanation can go like this. Say you want to do an open source thing, and spend hours on it. Okay.
But if you are in China, you could have used those hours to make money for your family.
Why would you take care of not-family unless you had too much money and time?
I do think the Chinese care about “humanity” in my experience, but Three Body Problem shows a typical version of it: survival of the mass via individual cruelties.
Like I said, though, I think the upside is that the Chinese are naturally unreceptive to anything like rights for AI.
I think the lack of altruism part comes from the desire to compete and be superior(via effort). There’s no vast desire to have altruism as the West understands it. How would you be better than others?
The upside is that “specism” is a norm. There would be zero worry about wanting to give AI “fair rights.” I do think there is some consideration for “humankind”, but individual rights(for humans or animals) are strictly a “nice to have, unnecessary and often harmful.”
My experience is that the Chinese(I am one) will disassociate with the “strange part” of EA, such as mental uploading or minimization of suffering or even life extension: the basic conservative argument for species extension and life as human beings is what works.
CN is fundamentally conservative in that sense. The complications are not many and largely revolve around:
How is this good for the Party.
How is this good for “keeping things in harmony/close to nature/Taoism”
Emotional appeals for safety and effort. The story of effort = worth is strong there, and devaluation of human effort leads to reactions of disgust.
I apologize for being a normie but I can’t accept anything that involves non-existence of humanity and would indeed accept an enormous amount of suffering if those were the options.