Huh, I feel very differently. For AI risk specifically, I thought the conventional wisdom was always “if AI goes wrong, the most likely outcome is that we’ll all just die, and the next most likely outcome is that we get a future which somehow goes against our values even if it makes us very happy.” And besides AI risk, other x-risks haven’t really been discussed at all on LW. I don’t recall seeing any argument for s-risks being a particularly plausible category of risks, let alone one of the most important ones.
It’s true that there was That One Scandal, but the reaction to that was quite literally Let’s Never Talk About This Again—or alternatively Let’s Keep Bringing This Up To Complain About How It Was Handled, depending on the person in question—but then people always only seemed to be talking about that specific incident and argument. I never saw anyone draw the conclusion that “hey, this looks like an important subcategory of x-risks that warrants separate investigation and dedicated work to avoid”.
I don’t recall seeing any argument for s-risks being a particularly plausible category of risks, let alone one of the most important ones.
There was some discussion back in 2012 and sporadically sincethen. (ETA: You can also do a search for “hell simulations” and get a bunch more results.)
I never saw anyone draw the conclusion that “hey, this looks like an important subcategory of x-risks that warrants separate investigation and dedicated work to avoid”.
I’ve always thought that in order to prevent astronomical suffering, we will probably want to eventually (i.e., after a lot of careful thought) build an FAI that will colonize the universe and stop any potential astronomical suffering arising from alien origins and/or try to reduce suffering in other universes via acausal trade etc., so the work isn’t very different from other x-risk work. But now that the x-risk community is larger, maybe it does make sense to split out some of the more s-risk specific work?
I’ve always thought that in order to prevent astronomical suffering, we will probably want to eventually (i.e., after a lot of careful thought) build an FAI that will colonize the universe and stop any potential astronomical suffering arising from alien origins and/or try to reduce suffering in other universes via acausal trade etc., so the work isn’t very different from other x-risk work.
It seems like the most likely reasons to create suffering come from the existence of suffering-hating civilizations. Do you think that it’s clear/very likely that it is net helpful for there to be more mature suffering-hating civilizations? (On the suffering-focused perspective.)
Do you think that it’s clear/very likely that it is net helpful for there to be more mature suffering-hating civilizations? (On the suffering-focused perspective.)
My intuition is that there is no point in trying to answer questions like these before we know a lot more about decision theory, metaethics, metaphilosophy, and normative ethics, so pushing for a future where these kinds of questions eventually get answered correctly (and the answers make a difference in what happens) seems like the most important thing to do. It doesn’t seem to make sense to try to lock in some answers (i.e., make our civilization suffering-hating or not suffering-hating) on the off chance that when we figure out what the answers actually are, it will be too late. Someone with much less moral/philosophical uncertainty than I do would perhaps prioritize things differently, but I find it difficult to motivate myself to think really hard from their perspective.
If we try to answer the question now, it seems very likely we’ll get the answer wrong (given my state of uncertainty about the inputs that go into the question). I want to keep civilization going until we know better how to answer these types of questions. For example if we succeed in building a correctly designed/implemented Singleton FAI, it ought to be able to consider this question at leisure, and if it becomes clear that the existence of mature suffering-hating civilizations actually causes more suffering to be created, then it can decide to not make us into a mature suffering-hating civilization, or take whatever other action is appropriate.
Are you worried that by the time such an FAI (or whatever will control our civilization) figures out the answer, it will be too late? (Why? If we can decide that x-risk reduction is bad, then so can it. If it’s too late to alter or end civilization at that point, why isn’t it already too late for us?) Or are you worried more that the question won’t be answered correctly by whatever will control our civilization?
If you are concerned exclusively with suffering, then increasing the number of mature civilizations is obviously bad and you’d prefer that the average civilization not exist. You might think that our descendants are particularly good to keep around, since we hate suffering so much. But in fact almost all s-risks occur precisely because of civilizations that hate suffering, so it’s not at all clear that creating “the civilization that we will become on reflection” is better than creating “a random civilization” (which is bad).
To be clear, even if we have modest amounts of moral uncertainty I think it could easily justify a “wait and see” style approach. But if we were committed to a suffering-focused view then I don’t think your argument works.
But in fact almost all s-risks occur precisely because of civilizations that hate suffering
It seems just as plausible to me that suffering-hating civilizations reduce the overall amount of suffering in the multiverse, so I think I’d wait until it becomes clear which is the case, even if I was concerned exclusively with suffering. But I haven’t thought about this question much, since I haven’t had a reason to assume an exclusive concern with suffering, until you started asking me to.
To be clear, even if we have modest amounts of moral uncertainty I think it could easily justify a “wait and see” style approach. But if we were committed to a suffering-focused view then I don’t think your argument works.
Earlier in this thread I’d been speaking from the perspective of my own moral uncertainty, not from a purely suffering-focused view, since we were discussing the linked article, and Kaj had written:
The article isn’t specifically negative utilitarian, though—even classical utilitarians would agree that having astronomical amounts of suffering is a bad thing. Nor do you have to be a utilitarian in the first place to think it would be bad: as the article itself notes, pretty much all major value systems probably agree on s-risks being a major Bad Thing
What’s your reason for considering a purely suffering-focused view? Intellectual curiosity? Being nice to or cooperating with people like Brian Tomasik by helping to analyze one of their problems?
Or are you worried more that the question won’t be answered correctly by whatever will control our civilization?
Perhaps this, in case it turns out to be highly important but difficult to get certain ingredients – e.g. priors or decision theory – exactly right. (But I have no idea, it’s also plausible that suboptimal designs could patch themselves well, get rescued somehow, or just have their goals changed without much fuss.)
That sort of subject is inherently implicit in the kind of decision-theoretic questions that MIRI-style AI research involves. More generally, when one is thinking about astronomical-scale questions, and aggregating utilities, and so on, it is a matter of course that cosmically bad outcomes are as much of a theoretical possibility as cosmically good outcomes.
Now, the idea that one might need to specifically think about the bad outcomes, in the sense that preventing them might require strategies separate from those required for achieving good outcomes, may depend on additional assumptions that haven’t been conventional wisdom here.
Now, the idea that one might need to specifically think about the bad outcomes, in the sense that preventing them might require strategies separate from those required for achieving good outcomes, may depend on additional assumptions that haven’t been conventional wisdom here.
Right, I took this idea to be one of the main contributions of the article, and assumed that this was one of the reasons why cousin_it felt it was important and novel.
Huh, I feel very differently. For AI risk specifically, I thought the conventional wisdom was always “if AI goes wrong, the most likely outcome is that we’ll all just die, and the next most likely outcome is that we get a future which somehow goes against our values even if it makes us very happy.” And besides AI risk, other x-risks haven’t really been discussed at all on LW. I don’t recall seeing any argument for s-risks being a particularly plausible category of risks, let alone one of the most important ones.
It’s true that there was That One Scandal, but the reaction to that was quite literally Let’s Never Talk About This Again—or alternatively Let’s Keep Bringing This Up To Complain About How It Was Handled, depending on the person in question—but then people always only seemed to be talking about that specific incident and argument. I never saw anyone draw the conclusion that “hey, this looks like an important subcategory of x-risks that warrants separate investigation and dedicated work to avoid”.
There was some discussion back in 2012 and sporadically since then. (ETA: You can also do a search for “hell simulations” and get a bunch more results.)
I’ve always thought that in order to prevent astronomical suffering, we will probably want to eventually (i.e., after a lot of careful thought) build an FAI that will colonize the universe and stop any potential astronomical suffering arising from alien origins and/or try to reduce suffering in other universes via acausal trade etc., so the work isn’t very different from other x-risk work. But now that the x-risk community is larger, maybe it does make sense to split out some of the more s-risk specific work?
It seems like the most likely reasons to create suffering come from the existence of suffering-hating civilizations. Do you think that it’s clear/very likely that it is net helpful for there to be more mature suffering-hating civilizations? (On the suffering-focused perspective.)
My intuition is that there is no point in trying to answer questions like these before we know a lot more about decision theory, metaethics, metaphilosophy, and normative ethics, so pushing for a future where these kinds of questions eventually get answered correctly (and the answers make a difference in what happens) seems like the most important thing to do. It doesn’t seem to make sense to try to lock in some answers (i.e., make our civilization suffering-hating or not suffering-hating) on the off chance that when we figure out what the answers actually are, it will be too late. Someone with much less moral/philosophical uncertainty than I do would perhaps prioritize things differently, but I find it difficult to motivate myself to think really hard from their perspective.
This question seems like a major input into whether x-risk reduction is useful.
If we try to answer the question now, it seems very likely we’ll get the answer wrong (given my state of uncertainty about the inputs that go into the question). I want to keep civilization going until we know better how to answer these types of questions. For example if we succeed in building a correctly designed/implemented Singleton FAI, it ought to be able to consider this question at leisure, and if it becomes clear that the existence of mature suffering-hating civilizations actually causes more suffering to be created, then it can decide to not make us into a mature suffering-hating civilization, or take whatever other action is appropriate.
Are you worried that by the time such an FAI (or whatever will control our civilization) figures out the answer, it will be too late? (Why? If we can decide that x-risk reduction is bad, then so can it. If it’s too late to alter or end civilization at that point, why isn’t it already too late for us?) Or are you worried more that the question won’t be answered correctly by whatever will control our civilization?
If you are concerned exclusively with suffering, then increasing the number of mature civilizations is obviously bad and you’d prefer that the average civilization not exist. You might think that our descendants are particularly good to keep around, since we hate suffering so much. But in fact almost all s-risks occur precisely because of civilizations that hate suffering, so it’s not at all clear that creating “the civilization that we will become on reflection” is better than creating “a random civilization” (which is bad).
To be clear, even if we have modest amounts of moral uncertainty I think it could easily justify a “wait and see” style approach. But if we were committed to a suffering-focused view then I don’t think your argument works.
It seems just as plausible to me that suffering-hating civilizations reduce the overall amount of suffering in the multiverse, so I think I’d wait until it becomes clear which is the case, even if I was concerned exclusively with suffering. But I haven’t thought about this question much, since I haven’t had a reason to assume an exclusive concern with suffering, until you started asking me to.
Earlier in this thread I’d been speaking from the perspective of my own moral uncertainty, not from a purely suffering-focused view, since we were discussing the linked article, and Kaj had written:
What’s your reason for considering a purely suffering-focused view? Intellectual curiosity? Being nice to or cooperating with people like Brian Tomasik by helping to analyze one of their problems?
Understanding the recommendations of each plausible theory seems like a useful first step in decision-making under moral uncertainty.
Perhaps this, in case it turns out to be highly important but difficult to get certain ingredients – e.g. priors or decision theory – exactly right. (But I have no idea, it’s also plausible that suboptimal designs could patch themselves well, get rescued somehow, or just have their goals changed without much fuss.)
That sort of subject is inherently implicit in the kind of decision-theoretic questions that MIRI-style AI research involves. More generally, when one is thinking about astronomical-scale questions, and aggregating utilities, and so on, it is a matter of course that cosmically bad outcomes are as much of a theoretical possibility as cosmically good outcomes.
Now, the idea that one might need to specifically think about the bad outcomes, in the sense that preventing them might require strategies separate from those required for achieving good outcomes, may depend on additional assumptions that haven’t been conventional wisdom here.
Right, I took this idea to be one of the main contributions of the article, and assumed that this was one of the reasons why cousin_it felt it was important and novel.