thx
ymeskhout
Karma: 1,267
Near-Term Risks of an Obedient Artificial Intelligence
Consider The Hand Axe
Yes, very true, and I like calling it a regime change. As I was researching stone tools, I came across several mentions about mankind’s increasing cognitive capacity and how crucial it was to advance the technology. Once the evolutionary brain-size foundation was set, the jet fuel that powered the next few thousand years of technological advancement was almost entirely capital accumulation and societal technology.
What Boston Can Teach Us About What a Woman Is
Thank you so much for replying and engaging with my post, I really appreciate it.
This is as far as I can tell completely false.
I admit I should have qualified my assertion and used less polemical wording in that passage. I didn’t intend to imply that pregnancy must mandate feelings of dysphoria among transmen, my overall point in that paragraph was collateral to that issue either way.
This is the general feeling I get from a lot of this post: it represents a good understanding of the anti-trans side of the debate, and a good understanding of the rationalist interpretation of semantics applied to the trans debate, but it lacks understanding of the experiences of trans people, and it also lacks awareness that it is missing that understanding.
I’m always eager to learn more! I have a habit of finding myself go down some deep research rabbit holes, and this post definitely was not an exception. I made an earnest attempt to find good sources on trans experience (e.g. looking up trans philosophers and reading their work) and I reached out to many people to discuss further. Obviously this is a touchy subject but it was disappointing to encounter so many people averse to a critical discussion on the topic. If you have any sources you believe I should be familiar with, please send them my way!
The most basic piece of information that is being communicated here is that, assuming you speak English, the person would like you to use female-gendered terms (she/her/hers, actress instead of actor, etc.) for her. You touch on the rest with [snip] and I’m not sure why you discard this as worthless or deceptive. Maybe a better way of framing this is to translate “I identify as a women” to “I believe you will do a better job of modeling my personality, desires, actions, and other ways of interacting with you if you use predictions from the ‘woman’ category you have in your mind instead of the ‘man’ category in your mind.”
I admit, this is extremely confusing to me. I’ve met many self-identified women (trans and otherwise) that did not prefer female-gendered terms, prompting plenty of inadvertent social gaffes on my end. I’ve since learned not to assume and to be more mindful about asking for people’s specific term preferences but this dovetails into your latter point about relying on categories as a modeling tool which I already touched upon in my post:
But it would be better for both of us if she just told me this directly, without inviting potentially insulting or erroneous assumptions. To the extent that woman is a cluster of traits, I struggle to contemplate a scenario where communicating the cluster is a more efficient or more thoughtful method of communication than just communicating the specific pertinent trait. Just tell me what you want me to know directly. Use other words if need be.
My kingdom for some specifics! If someone invited me to model their “personality, desires, actions, etc.” based on just their gender category, you’re bound to see my face take on the appearance of a stuck boot-up screen. I’ve tried to really think hard and introspect about how exactly I would treat someone differently based on their gender category and the most reliable heuristic I could think of was “in conversation, don’t bring up video games or guns when talking to women.” Hilariously this guidance is completely off the mark with the transwomen I’ve hung out with. Beyond that very crude and unreliable guidance, I remain rudderless and find gender categories way too broad and opaque to discern any meaningful guidance, unless I want to take a risk with potentially deeply offensive assumptions like “talk about shopping and avoid serious politics.” My question in the passage I quoted above remains.
Woops! Thank you for catching that error
Some examples of places where knowing someone identifies as a woman vs. as a man vs. as nonbinary would affect your view of their behavior:
I appreciate that you provided specific examples but my immediate reaction to your list was one of bafflement.
While I personally don’t care what bathrooms or changing room anyone uses, to the extent someone does prompt a negative reaction for being in the “wrong” room it would be entirely predicated on how that individual is perceived by others (read: pass), not what they personally identify as.
Similarly, I don’t understand why I would care about someone’s gender identity when assessing their sartorial choices; they either look good or not and me finding out about their internal identity wouldn’t prompt an update. I recently had two friends come across an XXXL pair of overalls they both managed to fit into each pant leg. I was able to deduce that they were being silly through an astute analysis of several context clues; I didn’t need to know what body size they subjectively “identified” as to reach that conclusion.
With casual social touching, I’ve never met anyone who drew the line based on someone’s identity. If these people do indeed exist, I would be intensely curious to better understand the basis of their preference. Namely: what would the difference be between someone asking for a hug while announcing they identify as Y versus, ceteris paribus, announcing that they identify as X.
To the extent my post had a thesis, it’s that using gender categories to imputing predictions is highly inefficient and a highly misleading sorting mechanism, and that it is generally better to be specific than hope you hit the correct stereotypes in your audience’s mind. The examples you list demonstrate this point exactly.
As a further analogy, consider if a friend were to tell me “I’m not wearing a polo shirt now, but I identify as someone who is wearing a polo shirt, and I am telling you this information in the hopes that you’ll correctly guess that I enjoy golfing.” Why play these riddles?
You stated that I potentially don’t interact with people’s gender that frequently, and that’s probably true. I generally avoid making assumptions about individuals, for the reasons stated above. Originally you said that my post lacked an “understanding of the experiences of trans people” and I’m still eager to learn more! What am I missing exactly and what sources would you recommend I read?
I’m not sure if I understand your criticism correctly, can you be more specific? The point of my post was to describe a phenomena in linguistics I thought was interesting, and to suggest a solution based on an observation that interlocutors were speaking past each other.
I appreciate the sentiment in wanting to avoid culture war battlegrounds. I’m definitely open to criticism and feedback, so if you have anything specific about my post that rubbed you the wrong way I would really appreciate it if you could point it out.
I’m not at all convinced that differing definitions of words is a problem that needs a permanent solution.
I agree! There is certainly utility in relying on language as a coordination mechanism but, though frustrating at times, there’s beauty in the fluidity of language and meaning. It’s the basis of art, poetry, and even insights sometimes.
...the specific answers are less important here than the general idea of “let’s answer each question separately” (because different questions may have different answers).
We may disagree on some of the answers but I emphatically concur with your approach.
I think I finally understand the source of the confusion. Correct me if I’m wrong but it appears to me that you use “sex” and “gender” interchangeably, where a change in the latter is (or at least should be treated as) functionally a change in the former.
I definitely use sex as “a very strong feature of navigating the world” because I can readily point to endless circumstances where knowing someone’s sex (and the likely associated secondary characteristics) provides useful information (height, violence propensity, affinity towards trains, whatever). I recognize that someone’s sex is a dense piece of information to have because it has reliable predictive qualities.
There’s plenty of other traits with similarly reliable predictive qualities and maybe it’s helpful to set aside sex/gender for a bit. If I knew nothing about a person except that they’re a Harvard graduate, it’s reasonable for me to guess that they’re more likely to be intelligent, ambitious, privileged, conceited, etc. Obviously not every Harvard grad fits those traits, and if somehow there’s a grad whom I assume is ambitious and conceited but who idles his days as a homeless beach bum, well the error is on me.
But suppose the only thing I knew about a person is they “identify” as a Harvard graduate. I would like to think that everyone’s first question would be “what does that mean??” and suppose this individual responds with “although I technically never went to Harvard, I am nevertheless intelligent, ambitious, privileged, conceited, etc. and it’s just easier/faster/simpler for me to implant that impression through a single informational payload rather than piece by piece.”
I may not endorse this tactic, but I get it! Of course, the natural follow-up question would be “but how do we know that you’re actually any of those traits you mentioned?” and also “but how do you ensure that you implant the intended impression?” These are the exact same questions I would ask of a trans individual.
There seems to be an attempt to reverse the inference flow. It brings to mind a post by Parrhesia:
To illustrate this sort of semantic ethical reasoning, imagine an ethical vegan who refuses to buy her child a stuffed animal. She argues that: a stuffed animal is an animal; it is wrong to purchase animals; therefore, it is wrong to buy a stuffed animal. If you think in words, then it makes sense. But if you start thinking about reality, you’ll notice an issue. Ethical vegans are usually vegan because they don’t want to cause animal suffering, and a stuffed animal—if you wish to call it an animal or not—does not experience suffering. Whether a stuffed animal is an animal is tangential to the ethicality of purchasing it.
We can apply this framework to any of your examples, and that’s what I was getting at in my post when I’d ask “Why does it matter?” So for example one of the concerns someone might have with undressing in public is avoiding the discomfort that might come with attracting sexualized attention from strangers. A reliable assumption is that the vast majority of people only feel sexual attraction towards the opposite sex, which is why same-sex changing rooms are such a widespread solution to this concern (obviously this is not perfectly reliable, and it also relies on the assumption that same-sex attraction did not exist).
There’s a reason I linked to the Disguised Queries post on bleggs and rubes. The fallacy here would be assuming that the “good-enough” sorting mechanism is the end goal itself, rather than merely a useful tool to get us to our real destination. Unless you keep in mind the root purpose of the sorting mechanism, you risk coming to the erroneous conclusion that vegans think stuffed animals are immoral.
I don’t understand your objection to the Harvard analogy exactly, especially since you included it in your list. I also don’t understand how exactly you’re distinguishing “social role” from “physical fact” (which one is ‘lesbian’?) or why identifying as a Bostonian is meaningful but Harvard grad is not?
Given that lack of clarity, I worry we have different understanding of the phrase “social role”. My definition would be something along the lines of “the set of behaviors, expectations, and responsibilities associated with a particular position or status within a group or society”. Assuming you agree with that definition, I absolutely understand why someone would care about wanting to fit into and interact with the world as a specific role.
But desire for a particular social role is not a sufficient condition for attaining it. Babies are a social role. No one complains when they sleep all day instead of going to work, and no one is surprised when other people clean them up when they shit their pants. Babies are treated this way because they’re vulnerable and they lack this capacity to take care of themselves because of they haven’t sufficiently developed at their age. And while age is a really good proxy for self-sufficiency (especially early on) it’s obviously not the only one. See for example how we treat the elderly and the severely disabled. The simplistic analysis here would be to deny a vulnerable person the pampered treatment just because they’re too old to be a baby.
Conversely, if I had the intent to be treated the same way as a baby — fed Gerber and pampered by a dedicated two-person team while I sleep all day — it would be reasonable to ask why I am warranted that role. If I’m able-bodied and self-sufficient, it’s reasonable for me to be denied that social role. You can call this a sort of “price of admission” to the social role if you’d like.
I would guess that you don’t agree that segregating changing rooms by masculine appearance/feminine appearance is correct?
I’m not sure what made you think that? I don’t have an opinion on what the “correct” segregation method for dressing rooms should be; it would all depend on the goal you’re trying to accomplish. I brought up “minimizing sexualized attention from strangers” as just one of many possible objectives.
Thank you so much for being open to discuss such a sensitive topic. If you end up retracting anything, please let me know and I can edit this reply accordingly.
I would first be interested to know why you identify as a trans man generally. Do/did you experience dysphoria? If so, can you describe what it feels like? Would it be reasonable to split dysphoria into two different categories: body characteristics versus social role? How would you distinguish identifying as a trans man versus identifying as a masculine female (as in, what is the line that prompts the “flip” to the other side)? Has your pregnancy changed or prompted any new thoughts about your gender identity?
I apologize in advance if any of this comes across as an interrogation, that is not intentional! I very rarely encounter many people who are willing to engage this topic critically so I’m grateful for the opportunity.
I do harbor some doubt as to whether an unbigoted society would contain many heterosexual men that (i) don’t want children and (ii) disprefer dating a transgender woman even if she looks externally indistinguishable from a cisgender woman. I am not confident there, but it seems odd to have such a strong innate preference purely about the history of your lover’s body.
I apologize if any of this reply is overly gratuitous but that is difficult to avoid completely given the subject matter. I am a heterosexual male and a central component of my sexual attraction towards females is just the mechanics of penis and vagina sex (I have no interest in anal sex). I am aware that vaginoplasty exists but virtually every description I’ve encountered sounds horrific and the state of the technology is severely missing key features (natural lubrication and “stretch & bounce” for lack of a better term).
While genitals are a necessary and non-negotiable characteristic, there are many other factors that I am attracted to in females, such as voice and smell. But assuming arguendo that medical technology advances so far that physical characteristics for transwomen are absolutely indistinguishable in every way to females — including voice and smell and including every aspect of the vagina — then yes I admit I would have fewer reasons to exclusively prefer females.
There are some other very interesting dynamics to explore in such a hypothetical (e.g. how does puberty development factor in? How do the dynamics in the sexual marketplace around ‘status’ shift? etc.) but that would depend on the assumption contours we’re using.
I appear to have angered and/or offended you and I apologize for that. I don’t believe my post had much of an argument, it was more an attempt to explain a position you expressed curiosity about. I apologize for misinterpreting anything.
I used “females” to minimize meaning ambiguity, and I don’t understand why the word is offensive, especially considering you use “males” in your last sentence. I generally avoid using the prefix “cis” because its definition requires someone to have the same “gender identity” as their sex and what I wrote was much broader than just that group. “Females” in contrast encompasses all members of the female sex, regardless of their gender identity (e.g. pre-op transmen in this context) or whether they even have an identity (e.g. some non-binary, agender, or otherwise). I haven’t encountered the terms “genetic females” or “natural females” before but I would have assumed those would be much more offensive because of what they imply about the converse (e.g. “unnatural”). I’m not clear on the etiquette of language here, but my overall aim was precision and I apologize for inadvertently causing you offense.
And yes, I understand that many “natural vagina-havers” (for lack of a better term, apologies if this is offensive) can have many issues with sexual intercourse, including some of the same factors I mentioned above. Just because vaginas are a necessary requirement for my attraction doesn’t mean it’s a sufficient one, and there are many other factors to consider within that realm to ensure sexual compatibility.
I understand that voice is modifiable with training to an extent. I’ve personally never met a transwoman that passed vocally but either way I assumed arguendo that it’s at least theoretically possible with further advances in technology. Regarding smells, I admit I have limited experience with this and mostly relied on what a bisexual friend of mine who slept with several transwomen told me.
I’m glad you have people interested in you, but I’m not sure how you interpreted anything I said to mean otherwise?
It seems that you think that “male/female” should refer strictly to genetics while “man/woman” should refer to gender identity, but I don’t think this a great convention: in everyday use, “woman” and “female” are often used interchangeably.
I am aiming to do the best I can in communicating with precision and I apologize for any missteps on my part. It’s certainly true that “woman” and “female” are often used interchangeably but I’ve seen this become the source of significant confusion and ambiguity. You are correct about how I use the two terms (although it’s more about social role than identity); that is the convention I’ve eventually settled upon and so far it has worked well in minimizing ambiguity.
My working assumption about the word “female” is that it is much more heavily grounded within the context of reproductive capacity and the associated secondary characteristics (e.g. a livestock breeder ordering “females” from a supplier is not ambiguous in that context) which is why I used it.
Given your greater familiarity with this space I trust your judgment that “natural females” would not be negatively received here, but I’m doubtful this would be the case outside of LW and it’s difficult to keep a vocabulary index updated across so many places. I also imagine that transmen and non-binary individuals would not appreciate being called “female”, but they’d appreciate “natural female” even less. With regards to “genetic females” my question would be “as opposed to what?” so my (weak) objection is mostly based on its ambiguity to me. I wouldn’t be confident that either terms would carry the meaning I intend.
Either way, I was not privy to either of these alternate phrases before, so I hope it’s established that my use of “females” was not intended to be malicious. Language is imperfect and I’m trying to do the best I can in nevertheless communicating clearly.
Wow! I am so grateful for this comment and the transparency and candor you’ve written it with. I appreciate the time you took to write this out and I have some follow-up questions if you don’t mind.
I have a strong impression that most people I encounter have this really strong desire to know whether the person they’re interacting with “is a man” or “is a woman”.
Have you noticed any difference in people’s behavior depending on what gender category they perceive you as?
Of those two options, there is clearly one that causes me to feel tremendous stress and sadness a whole lot of the time when I’m around other people, and another that causes me to feel mostly good and comfortable when I’m around other people.
What is it about that perception by others that causes you so much stress? Is it because their perception comes pre-packaged along with some erroneous assumptions about you? (e.g. the pregnancy books assuming how you feel about your baby)
And indeed, overall I feel more at home, cozy, resonant, happy, comfortable, when I rest my attention on the traditionally masculine elements of these frameworks, even though I also feel a lot of familiarity around many of the traditionally feminine elements as well.
This might be impossible to answer but are you able to determine which way causation flows? What I mean by this is do you feel more connected to certain concepts because they are coded as masculine, or do you just feel that affinity with concepts that happen to be coded as masculine? You’ve lucidly and transparently described how your cognition is affected by your hormonal balance, and your strong aversion to your PMS mental state, so I’m wonder where this preference cleaves.
It all feels wrong and weird to me.
Similar question as above. Does the discomfort with aspects of your physiology stem from them being coded as feminine? Put another way, if you somehow had no concept of masculine/feminine, would your physiology on its own still cause you discomfort?
True, I imagine some rituals and gestures will remain precisely because they are inefficient. I already use chatGPT as a pseudo editor and thesaurus, and as I was writing the above I kept feeling the familiar tug to just open the tab and have the robot do it. It’s such a huge labor-saving device on that front. I think I felt a sense of pride and attachment to (Allah forgive me) “artisanal” writing. My day job is as a public defender and my writing is on the side. I’ve had ideations of writing a book and I’m flabbergasted as to how anyone today finds the time. Now with infinite text generators living among us, “I wrote a book!” feels markedly less impressive. Maybe come back when you’ve written several dozen? It’s vain, absolutely, but there is a sense of achievement that is worth cherishing, and while we remain in this in-between phase the message will also remain muddled.