These are fine points about differing values and actions, but I do want to defend that Eliezer is explicitly using the concept of dignity in the standard way (i.e. acting in a way worthy of respect). There is a kind of dignity in choosing to end your life when you are well and happy rather than when you are broken and in pain, which is not the same as maximizing log odds of survival, but nonetheless Eliezer’s essay is explicitly claiming that the latter is what it means for a civilization to act with dignity.
“Wait, dignity points?” you ask. “What are those? In what units are they measured, exactly?”
And to this I reply: Obviously, the measuring units of dignity are over humanity’s log odds of survival—the graph on which the logistic success curve is a straight line. A project that doubles humanity’s chance of survival from 0% to 0% is helping humanity die with one additional information-theoretic bit of dignity.
These are fine points about differing values and actions, but I do want to defend that Eliezer is explicitly using the concept of dignity in the standard way (i.e. acting in a way worthy of respect). There is a kind of dignity in choosing to end your life when you are well and happy rather than when you are broken and in pain, which is not the same as maximizing log odds of survival, but nonetheless Eliezer’s essay is explicitly claiming that the latter is what it means for a civilization to act with dignity.