Or are you pretty sure that “suffering” is not just hard to define, but actually impossible, and/or that it’s impossible to reduce suffering to any significant extent below the default outcome, while keeping technology at the same level?
Masochist: Please hurt me!
Sadist: No.
If you are pretty sure about this, are you equally sure about every other value that I could cite instead of suffering?
What if I said that I don’t know how to define it now, but I think if you made me a bit (or a lot) smarter...
If you were to uplift a chimpanzee onto the human level and told it to figure out how to reduce suffering for chimpanzees, it would probably come up with ideas like democracy, health insurance and supermarkets. Problem is that chimpanzees wouldn’t appreciate those ideas...
XiXiDu, I’m aware that I’m hardly making a watertight case that I can definitely do better than davidad’s plan (from the perspective of his current apparent values). I’m merely trying to introduce some doubt. (Note how Eliezer used to be a technophile like David, and said things like “But if it comes down to Us or Them, I’m with Them.”, but then changed his mind.)
Masochist: Please hurt me!
Sadist: No.
Not sure, but it might be impossible.
If you were to uplift a chimpanzee onto the human level and told it to figure out how to reduce suffering for chimpanzees, it would probably come up with ideas like democracy, health insurance and supermarkets. Problem is that chimpanzees wouldn’t appreciate those ideas...
XiXiDu, I’m aware that I’m hardly making a watertight case that I can definitely do better than davidad’s plan (from the perspective of his current apparent values). I’m merely trying to introduce some doubt. (Note how Eliezer used to be a technophile like David, and said things like “But if it comes down to Us or Them, I’m with Them.”, but then changed his mind.)