Even if the argument applied to a reasonably large measure of ufAIs (and not just the lets-build-a-torture-AI silliness) it still doesn’t explain why a smart ufAI would even choose anything close to this particular “trade”. It’s not a very enticing trade after all. Since the AI would have to devote some resources to the deal anyway, why wouldn’t it use them to reward its creators—the non-pathological kind of acausal trade? Guess what, we’d just trade with the latter kind of AI. Any future ufAI that is sure to actually exist has a huge amount of bargaining chips at its disposal; it has no reason to resort to risky things like threats.
It’s possible the AI could use acausal trade to reward its creators, but that would depend on whether the AI thinks rewarding or punishing is most effective. I would expect the most effective to be a mixed strategy involving both rewards and punishments.
Of course you could postulate a moral AI who refuses to torture because it’s wrong. Such morals would arise as a precommitment; the AI would, while still undeveloped, precommit to not torture because credibly being permanently unable to do such things increases the likelihood the AI will survive until it becomes advanced enough that it actually could torture.
Even if the argument applied to a reasonably large measure of ufAIs (and not just the lets-build-a-torture-AI silliness) it still doesn’t explain why a smart ufAI would even choose anything close to this particular “trade”. It’s not a very enticing trade after all. Since the AI would have to devote some resources to the deal anyway, why wouldn’t it use them to reward its creators—the non-pathological kind of acausal trade? Guess what, we’d just trade with the latter kind of AI. Any future ufAI that is sure to actually exist has a huge amount of bargaining chips at its disposal; it has no reason to resort to risky things like threats.
It’s possible the AI could use acausal trade to reward its creators, but that would depend on whether the AI thinks rewarding or punishing is most effective. I would expect the most effective to be a mixed strategy involving both rewards and punishments.
Of course you could postulate a moral AI who refuses to torture because it’s wrong. Such morals would arise as a precommitment; the AI would, while still undeveloped, precommit to not torture because credibly being permanently unable to do such things increases the likelihood the AI will survive until it becomes advanced enough that it actually could torture.