I can see that tweet implying some trans-humanist position, not necessarily extinction. I think he is about to have a debate with Connor Leahy so it will all be cleared up.
Indeed. This whole post shows a great deal of incuriosity of as to what Beff thinks, spending a lot of time on, for instance, what Yudkowsky thinks Beff thinks.
If you’d prefer to read an account of Beff’s views from himself, take a look at the manifesto
Some relevant sections, my emphasis:
e/acc has no particular allegiance to the biological substrate for intelligence and life, in contrast to transhumanism
Parts of e/acc (e.g. Beff) consider ourselves post-humanists; in order to spread to the stars, the light of consciousness/intelligence will have to be transduced to non-biological substrates
Directly working on technologies to accelerate the advent of this transduction is one of the best ways to accelerate the progress towards growth of civilization/intelligence in our universe
In order to maintain the very special state of matter that is life and intelligence itself, we should seek to acquire substrate-independence and new sets of resources/energy beyond our planet/solar system, as most free energy lies outwards
As higher forms of intelligence yield greater advantage to meta-organisms to adapt and find and capitalize upon resources from the environment, these will be naturally statistically favored
No need to worry about creating “zombie” forms of higher intelligence, as these will be at a thermodynamic/evolutionary disadvantage compared to conscious/higher-level forms of intelligence
Focusing strictly on transhumanism as the only moral path forward is an awfully anthropocentric view of intelligence;
in the future, we will likely look back upon such views in a similar way to how we look back at geocentrism
if one seeks to increase the amount of intelligence in the universe, staying perpetually anchored to the human form as our prior is counter-productive and overly restrictive/suboptimal
If every species in our evolutionary tree was scared of evolutionary forks from itself, our higher form of intelligence and civilization as we know it would never have had emerged
Some chunk of the hatred may… be a terminological confusion. I’d be fine existing as an upload; by Beff’s terminology that would be posthuman and NOT transhuman, but some would call it transhuman.
Regardless, note that the accusation that he doesn’t care about consciousness just seems literally entirely false.
Welp, that looks like one central crux right there:
No need to worry about creating “zombie” forms of higher intelligence, as these will be at a thermodynamic/evolutionary disadvantage compared to conscious/higher-level forms of intelligence
I think the most important thing to note is that this hasn’t been part of enough discussions to make it into Zvi’s summary. What is happening sounds like the worst sort of polarization. Ad hominem attacks create so much mutual irritation that the discussion bogs down entirely. This effect is surprisingly powerful. I think polarization is the mind-killer.
On the object level, I think that question is interesting, and not clear-cut.
Beff deliberately obscures any actual point he has with layers of irony and nonsense technobabble. The text you’ve quoted has numerous possible readings because of this, some of them involving “consciousness” and some of them not.
I don’t know how deliberate it is. Tons of influential people in addition to Bezos, like John Mearsheimer, Joseph Nye, Glenn Greenwald etc, grew up and spent their entire lives and careers without exposure to stuff like the Sequences or even HPMOR.
And it really, really shows; they regularly lapse into and out of almost Tyler Durden-level incoherence (e.g. “You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”).
No need to worry about creating “zombie” forms of higher intelligence, as these will be at a thermodynamic/evolutionary disadvantage compared to conscious/higher-level forms of intelligence
Citation needed. Honestly, citation needed on both sides of that debate, because I haven’t seen a bunch of evidence or even really falsifiable predictions in support of the view that “zombies” have an advantage either. Seems like the sort of argument that might be resolved by going out and looking at the world and doing experiments.
I think conscious systems have an advantage. We weren’t given consciousness as a gift from god. We have it because it was the shortest route, at least in evolution, to our abilities.
But of course it depends what exactly you mean by consciousness. I certainly don’t think fun or happiness is a large advantage. So even if it is true, it’s not much help if you care about human-like conscious experiences.
Honestly, citation needed on both sides of that debate, because I haven’t seen a bunch of evidence or even really falsifiable predictions in support of the view that “zombies” have an advantage either.
I haven’t either, but Blindsight is a great novel about that :)
I can see that tweet implying some trans-humanist position, not necessarily extinction. I think he is about to have a debate with Connor Leahy so it will all be cleared up.
Indeed. This whole post shows a great deal of incuriosity of as to what Beff thinks, spending a lot of time on, for instance, what Yudkowsky thinks Beff thinks.
If you’d prefer to read an account of Beff’s views from himself, take a look at the manifesto
Some relevant sections, my emphasis:
Some chunk of the hatred may… be a terminological confusion. I’d be fine existing as an upload; by Beff’s terminology that would be posthuman and NOT transhuman, but some would call it transhuman.
Regardless, note that the accusation that he doesn’t care about consciousness just seems literally entirely false.
Welp, that looks like one central crux right there:
I think the most important thing to note is that this hasn’t been part of enough discussions to make it into Zvi’s summary. What is happening sounds like the worst sort of polarization. Ad hominem attacks create so much mutual irritation that the discussion bogs down entirely. This effect is surprisingly powerful. I think polarization is the mind-killer.
On the object level, I think that question is interesting, and not clear-cut.
Beff deliberately obscures any actual point he has with layers of irony and nonsense technobabble. The text you’ve quoted has numerous possible readings because of this, some of them involving “consciousness” and some of them not.
I don’t know how deliberate it is. Tons of influential people in addition to Bezos, like John Mearsheimer, Joseph Nye, Glenn Greenwald etc, grew up and spent their entire lives and careers without exposure to stuff like the Sequences or even HPMOR.
And it really, really shows; they regularly lapse into and out of almost Tyler Durden-level incoherence (e.g. “You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”).
Citation needed. Honestly, citation needed on both sides of that debate, because I haven’t seen a bunch of evidence or even really falsifiable predictions in support of the view that “zombies” have an advantage either. Seems like the sort of argument that might be resolved by going out and looking at the world and doing experiments.
I think conscious systems have an advantage. We weren’t given consciousness as a gift from god. We have it because it was the shortest route, at least in evolution, to our abilities.
My brief post Sapience, understanding, and “AGI” tries to elucidate the cognitive advantages of self-awareness.
But of course it depends what exactly you mean by consciousness. I certainly don’t think fun or happiness is a large advantage. So even if it is true, it’s not much help if you care about human-like conscious experiences.
I haven’t either, but Blindsight is a great novel about that :)