Since we are talking regulation and/or treaties, both government concerns, is there anything to the idea of working in the context of party slogans (by which I mean tifa [提法])?
What I have in mind is something like this:
Review the arguments about AGI in English
Look for conceptual overlap with slogans on various topics (I expect these to be national development, national security, and the socialist conception of historical laws, by way of example).
See if any can be updated gracefully to talk about AGI specifically.
I think this might work because:
It will sever AGI from EA/Rationalism
It will put the AGI arguments in a context more familiar to Chinese officials and party members at least
It will not work if:
Making obvious adjustments to slogans in order to associate a specific issue with it is culturally nonsensical, or viewed as presumptuous or otherwise low-status
It literally does not work linguistically in a “For make benefit glorious nation of Kazakstan” sort of way.
That being said, I think it might be a good exercise at least from the English side as a direct attempt at working with some Chinese conceptualization of the motivations for the problem of alignment. A few examples of what I mean, with A being the English idea we want to communicate and B being a modified slogan that points at the same problem:
A) We do not know how to build an AI that knows human values.
My worry about this is the same as my worry about making AI not-kill-everyone-ism palatable to politicians in the West. Will they get the actual, core problem, and so understand which policies will not help? Reading your suggested changes, I might pattern match AGI to a new and powerful nation. This interpretation has an implicitly human framing, viewing the advent of AGI is like the birth of a new hegemon.
EDIT: That is to say, I’m not optimistic about confronting the mind-killing nature of political discourse, and trying to engage in that sort of discourse seems like a very hard battle. I am aware that I’m not giving a practical alternative though. So keep on thinking about this topic, please.
My empathy runs deep. Providing a little more context for the sloganeering as done inside China’s Communist Party, this is different from slogans in the context of American or European politics (which are almost totally tied to political campaigns for election); instead they work like this:
Phrases like these are extremely important to Communist Party politics and policy. Governing a party with more than 90 million members presents a dizzying coordination program. One way in which the Center manages this challenge is through the promulgation of slogans—also known by their Chinese term, tifa [提法]. The goal of a slogan is to package leadership priorities, strategic assessments, historical judgments, and policy programs in a phrase small enough to circulate throughout propaganda system. The ideal tifa is vague enough for cadres to easily adapt to their own sphere of responsibility but specific enough unify the work priorities of millions of party cadres and state bureaucrats.
Which of course does not resolve the problem of political competition:
Historically the role tifa play in governing China has made these slogans a central battleground for political competition. Many slogans do not just signal policy priorities, but loyalty to particular factions or patronage networks. From the outside it can be difficult to discern whether shifting slogans represent the victory of an idea or of a faction.
But I do have the sense that, at least in the case of party slogans, it is about what the priorities are and who executes them and the detailed implementation is usually a separate question.
But I do have the sense that, at least in the case of party slogans, it is about what the priorities are and who executes them and the detailed implementation is usually a separate question.
I don’t understand why this helps. Who executes a priority, and what exactly a priority is, seem greatly correlated with the space of detailed implementation of a policy. Look at what happened with Drexlerian nanotech: the term got hijacked by people who called their pre-existing work nanotech in order to obtain resources from the US government which were earmarked for “nanotech”. Why wouldn’t something similair happen for AI not-kill-everyoneism? People argue over what exactly the priority is (“the AI must have chinese characteristics” vs. “the AI must be rewarded for having chinese characterisitcs and obeying the law”) and who executes it (curious, brilliant people who can work on the core of the problem vs bureaucrat clout-chasers). So what if the detailed implementaion is a seperate question? The front has already collapsed.
I admit to that I don’t see what has made you excited about this idea, and understand if you don’t want to spend the effort conveying it at the moment. And I also admit to being confused: I realized that part of where the nanotech-AI analogy might fail is in the pressures US vs. Chinese politicians face, and how the battle over priorities are fought. Another area it might fail is that I don’t in what context “sloganeering” is done. Who is the audience for this? How does the existence of a dictator like Xi affect things? I’ve not really thought about it.
Another area it might fail is that I don’t in what context “sloganeering” is done. Who is the audience for this? How does the existence of a dictator like Xi affect things?
This is the crux of the matter, I think: the slogans to which I am pointing are those used inside the communist party of China for the purposes of coordinating the party members and bureaucrats, who are the audience. Xi has introduced several of the slogans in current use, and has tried and failed to introduce others. That is to say, they are how the Chinese government talks to itself, and Xi is at the center of the conversation.
I focused on the slogans because I have some clue how this system works, but don’t have a notion about Chinese language in general, or Chinese culture in general, or the technical culture specifically. So all I’ve done here is take the idea “alignment should be more of a priority in China” and the idea “I know one way the Chinese government talks about priorities” and bashed ’em together like a toddler making their dolls kiss.
The challenge is the part that is exciting to me, frankly. Communicating an important problem across cultural lines is hard, and impressive when done well, and provides me a certain aesthetic pleasure. It is definitely not the case that I have analyzed the problem at length, or done similar things before and concluded on priors that this will be an effective method.
Edit: putting the slogans into a more LessWrong context, tifa are directly a solution to the problem described n You Get About Five Words.
Expert opinion, conversations with their engineer friends, the “general mood” among scientists in a particular field, and opinion pieces written by influential writers. That sort of thing.
Since we are talking regulation and/or treaties, both government concerns, is there anything to the idea of working in the context of party slogans (by which I mean tifa [提法])?
What I have in mind is something like this:
Review the arguments about AGI in English
Look for conceptual overlap with slogans on various topics (I expect these to be national development, national security, and the socialist conception of historical laws, by way of example).
See if any can be updated gracefully to talk about AGI specifically.
I think this might work because:
It will sever AGI from EA/Rationalism
It will put the AGI arguments in a context more familiar to Chinese officials and party members at least
It will not work if:
Making obvious adjustments to slogans in order to associate a specific issue with it is culturally nonsensical, or viewed as presumptuous or otherwise low-status
It literally does not work linguistically in a “For make benefit glorious nation of Kazakstan” sort of way.
That being said, I think it might be a good exercise at least from the English side as a direct attempt at working with some Chinese conceptualization of the motivations for the problem of alignment. A few examples of what I mean, with A being the English idea we want to communicate and B being a modified slogan that points at the same problem:
A) We do not know how to build an AI that knows human values.
B) We do not know how to build an AI with Chinese characteristics.
A) An AGI will be more capable than all of humanity put together.
B) The backwards will be beaten, and all nations will be backwards compared to AGI.
A) Unaligned AGI will cause catastrophe or human extinction by default.
B) Unaligned AGI is a member of the hostile forces by default.
My worry about this is the same as my worry about making AI not-kill-everyone-ism palatable to politicians in the West. Will they get the actual, core problem, and so understand which policies will not help? Reading your suggested changes, I might pattern match AGI to a new and powerful nation. This interpretation has an implicitly human framing, viewing the advent of AGI is like the birth of a new hegemon.
EDIT: That is to say, I’m not optimistic about confronting the mind-killing nature of political discourse, and trying to engage in that sort of discourse seems like a very hard battle. I am aware that I’m not giving a practical alternative though. So keep on thinking about this topic, please.
My empathy runs deep. Providing a little more context for the sloganeering as done inside China’s Communist Party, this is different from slogans in the context of American or European politics (which are almost totally tied to political campaigns for election); instead they work like this:
Which of course does not resolve the problem of political competition:
But I do have the sense that, at least in the case of party slogans, it is about what the priorities are and who executes them and the detailed implementation is usually a separate question.
I don’t understand why this helps. Who executes a priority, and what exactly a priority is, seem greatly correlated with the space of detailed implementation of a policy. Look at what happened with Drexlerian nanotech: the term got hijacked by people who called their pre-existing work nanotech in order to obtain resources from the US government which were earmarked for “nanotech”. Why wouldn’t something similair happen for AI not-kill-everyoneism? People argue over what exactly the priority is (“the AI must have chinese characteristics” vs. “the AI must be rewarded for having chinese characterisitcs and obeying the law”) and who executes it (curious, brilliant people who can work on the core of the problem vs bureaucrat clout-chasers). So what if the detailed implementaion is a seperate question? The front has already collapsed.
I admit to that I don’t see what has made you excited about this idea, and understand if you don’t want to spend the effort conveying it at the moment. And I also admit to being confused: I realized that part of where the nanotech-AI analogy might fail is in the pressures US vs. Chinese politicians face, and how the battle over priorities are fought. Another area it might fail is that I don’t in what context “sloganeering” is done. Who is the audience for this? How does the existence of a dictator like Xi affect things? I’ve not really thought about it.
This is the crux of the matter, I think: the slogans to which I am pointing are those used inside the communist party of China for the purposes of coordinating the party members and bureaucrats, who are the audience. Xi has introduced several of the slogans in current use, and has tried and failed to introduce others. That is to say, they are how the Chinese government talks to itself, and Xi is at the center of the conversation.
I focused on the slogans because I have some clue how this system works, but don’t have a notion about Chinese language in general, or Chinese culture in general, or the technical culture specifically. So all I’ve done here is take the idea “alignment should be more of a priority in China” and the idea “I know one way the Chinese government talks about priorities” and bashed ’em together like a toddler making their dolls kiss.
The challenge is the part that is exciting to me, frankly. Communicating an important problem across cultural lines is hard, and impressive when done well, and provides me a certain aesthetic pleasure. It is definitely not the case that I have analyzed the problem at length, or done similar things before and concluded on priors that this will be an effective method.
Edit: putting the slogans into a more LessWrong context, tifa are directly a solution to the problem described n You Get About Five Words.
Party slogans are LARP. Westerners trying to convince us of things LARPing with our LARP is… Actually, just don’t do it.
How do ideas usually enter the party sphere, out of curiosity?
Expert opinion, conversations with their engineer friends, the “general mood” among scientists in a particular field, and opinion pieces written by influential writers. That sort of thing.