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.
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.