Thanks! I think I understand the intent of the rephrasing now.
What I meant with “obscure” is that both “true utility function” and “utility function that encodes the optimal actions to take for the best possible universe” have normative terminology in them that I don’t know how to reduce or operationalize.
For instance, imagine I am looking at action sequences and ranking them. Presumably large portions of that process would feel like difficult judgment calls where I’d feel nervous about still making some kind of mistake. Both your phrasings (to my ears) carry the connotation that there is a “best” mistake model, one which is in a relevant sense independent from our own judgment, where we can learn things that will make us more and more confident that now we’re probably not making mistakes anymore because of progress in finding the correct way of thinking about our values. That’s the part that feels obscure to me because I think we’ll always be in this unsatisfying epistemic situation where we’re nervous about making some kind of mistake by the light of a standard that we cannot properly describe.
I do get the intuition for thinking in these terms, though. It feels conceivable that another discovery similar to what cognitive biases did could improve our thinking, and I definitely agree that we want a concept for staying open to this possibility. I’m just pointing out that non-operationalized normative concepts seem obscure. (Though maybe that’s fine if we’re treating them in the same way Yudkowsky treats “magic reality fluid” – as a placeholder for whatever comes once we’re less confused about “measure”.)
What I meant with “obscure” is that both “true utility function” and “utility function that encodes the optimal actions to take for the best possible universe” have normative terminology in them that I don’t know how to reduce or operationalize.
Oh yeah, I was definitely speaking normatively there.
For instance, imagine I am looking at action sequences and ranking them. Presumably large portions of that process would feel like difficult judgment calls where I’d feel nervous about still making some kind of mistake.
Agreed, I’m just saying that in principle there exists some “best” way of making those calls.
Both your phrasings (to my ears) carry the connotation that there is a “best” mistake model, one which is in a relevant sense independent from our own judgment
Agreed that I’m assuming that there is a “best” mistake model, I wouldn’t say that it has to be independent from our own judgment.
Thanks! I think I understand the intent of the rephrasing now.
What I meant with “obscure” is that both “true utility function” and “utility function that encodes the optimal actions to take for the best possible universe” have normative terminology in them that I don’t know how to reduce or operationalize.
For instance, imagine I am looking at action sequences and ranking them. Presumably large portions of that process would feel like difficult judgment calls where I’d feel nervous about still making some kind of mistake. Both your phrasings (to my ears) carry the connotation that there is a “best” mistake model, one which is in a relevant sense independent from our own judgment, where we can learn things that will make us more and more confident that now we’re probably not making mistakes anymore because of progress in finding the correct way of thinking about our values. That’s the part that feels obscure to me because I think we’ll always be in this unsatisfying epistemic situation where we’re nervous about making some kind of mistake by the light of a standard that we cannot properly describe.
I do get the intuition for thinking in these terms, though. It feels conceivable that another discovery similar to what cognitive biases did could improve our thinking, and I definitely agree that we want a concept for staying open to this possibility. I’m just pointing out that non-operationalized normative concepts seem obscure. (Though maybe that’s fine if we’re treating them in the same way Yudkowsky treats “magic reality fluid” – as a placeholder for whatever comes once we’re less confused about “measure”.)
Oh yeah, I was definitely speaking normatively there.
Agreed, I’m just saying that in principle there exists some “best” way of making those calls.
Agreed that I’m assuming that there is a “best” mistake model, I wouldn’t say that it has to be independent from our own judgment.