Zeroth approximation of pseudokindness is strict nonintervention, reifying the patient-in-environment as a closed computation and letting it run indefinitely, with some allocation of compute. Interaction with the outside world creates vulnerability to external influence, but then again so does incautious closed computation, as we currently observe with AI x-risk, which is not something beamed in from outer space.
Formulation of the kinds of external influences that are appropriate for a particular patient-in-environment is exactly the topic of membranes/boundaries, this task can be taken as the defining desideratum for the topic. Specifically, the question of which environments can be put in contact with a particular membrane without corrupting it, hence why I think membranes are relevant to pseudokindness. Naturality of the membranes/boundaries abstraction is linked to naturality of the pseudokindness abstraction.
In contrast, the language of preferences/optimization seems to be the wrong frame for formulating pseudokindness, it wants to discuss ways of intervening and influencing, of not leaving value on the table, rather than ways of offering acceptable options that avoid manipulation. It might be possible to translate pseudokindness back into the language of preferences, but this translation would induce a kind of deontological prior on preferences that makes the more probable preferences look rather surprising/unnatural from a more preferences-first point of view.
Zeroth approximation of pseudokindness is strict nonintervention, reifying the patient-in-environment as a closed computation and letting it run indefinitely, with some allocation of compute. Interaction with the outside world creates vulnerability to external influence, but then again so does incautious closed computation, as we currently observe with AI x-risk, which is not something beamed in from outer space.
Formulation of the kinds of external influences that are appropriate for a particular patient-in-environment is exactly the topic of membranes/boundaries, this task can be taken as the defining desideratum for the topic. Specifically, the question of which environments can be put in contact with a particular membrane without corrupting it, hence why I think membranes are relevant to pseudokindness. Naturality of the membranes/boundaries abstraction is linked to naturality of the pseudokindness abstraction.
In contrast, the language of preferences/optimization seems to be the wrong frame for formulating pseudokindness, it wants to discuss ways of intervening and influencing, of not leaving value on the table, rather than ways of offering acceptable options that avoid manipulation. It might be possible to translate pseudokindness back into the language of preferences, but this translation would induce a kind of deontological prior on preferences that makes the more probable preferences look rather surprising/unnatural from a more preferences-first point of view.
Thanks for writing this. I also think what we want from psuedokindness is captured from membranes/boundaries.