I have found in my own life that I often hear this argument from people with some sort of religious faith, such that at some (maybe unconscious) level there is an assumption that nothing truly bad can happen unless it is “supposed” to. Not always, not exclusively, but could affect what counterarguments might be effective.
This argument makes no sense since religion bottoms out at deontology, not utilitarianism.
In a Christianity for example, if you think God would stop existential catastrophes, you have a deontological duty to do the same. And the vast majority of religions have some sort of deontological obligation to stop disasters (independently of whether divine intervention would have counter-factually happened).
I don’t know that there is a single counter argument, but I would generalize across two groupings:
Arguments from the first group of religious people involve those who are capable of applying rationality to their belief systems, when pressed. For those, if they espouse a “god will save us” (in the physical world) then I’d suggest the best way to approach them is to call out the contradiction between their stated beliefs—e.g., Ask first “do you believe that god gave man free will?” and if so “wouldn’t saving us from our bad choices obviate free will?”
That’s just an example, first and foremost though, you cannot hand wave away their religious belief system. You have to apply yourself to understanding their priors and to engage with those priors. If you don’t, it’s the same thing as having a discussion with an accelerationist who refuses to agree to assumptions like the “Orthogonality Thesis” or “Instrumental Convergence.” You’ll spend an unreasonable amount of time debating assumptions that you’ll likely make no meaningful progress on the topic you actually care about.
But in so questioning the religious person, you might find they fall into a different grouping. The group of people who are nihilistic in essence. Since “god will save us” could be metaphysical, they could mean instead that so long as they live as a “good {insert religious type of person}” that god will save them in the afterlife, then whether they live or die here in the physical world matters less to them. This is inclusive of those who believe in a rapture myth—that man is, in fact, doomed to be destroyed.
And I don’t know how to engage with someone in the second group. A nihilist will not be moved by rational arguments that are antithetical to their nihilism.
The larger problem (as I see it) is that their beliefs may not contain an inherent contradiction. They may be aligned to eventual human doom.
(Certainly rationality and nihilism are not on a single spectrum, so there are other variations possible, but for the purposes of generalizing… those are the two main groups, I believe.)
Or, if you prefer less religiously, the bias is: Everything that has a beginning has an end.
I don’t think this specific free will argument is convincing. Preventing someone’s death doesn’t obviate their free will, whether the savior is human, deity, alien, AI, or anything else. Think of doctors, parents, firefighters, etc. So I don’t see that there’s a contradiction between “God will physically save humans from extinction” and “God gave humans free will”. Our forthcoming extinction is not a matter of conscious choice.
I also think this would be a misdirected debate. Suppose, for a moment, that God saves us, physically, from extinction. Due to God’s subtle intervention the AI hits an integer overflow after killing the first 2^31 people and shuts down. Was it therefore okay to create the AI? Obviously not. Billions of deaths are bad under a very wide range of belief systems.
I understand where you’re going, but doctors, parents, firefighters are not possessing of ‘typical godlike attributes’ such as omniscience and omnipotence and a declaration of intent not to use such powers in a way that would obviate free will.
Nothing about humans saving other humans using fallible human means is remotely the same as a god changing the laws of physics to effect a miracle. And one human taking actions does not obviate the free will of another human. But when God can, through omnipotence, set up scenarios so that you have no choice at all… obviating free will… its a different class of thing all together.
So your responds reads like strawman fallacy to me.
In conclusion: I accept that my position isn’t convincing for you.
I agree with you that “you have to apply yourself to understanding their priors and to engage with those priors”. If someone’s beliefs are, for example:
God will intervene to prevent human extinction
God will not obviate free will
God cannot prevent human extinction without obviating free will
Then I agree there is an apparent contradiction, and this is a reasonable thing to ask them about. They could resolve it in three ways.
Maybe god will not intervene. (very roughly: deism)
Maybe god will intervene and obviate free will. (very roughly: conservative theism)
Maybe god will intervene and preserve free will. (very roughly: liberal theism)
However they resolve it, discussion can go from there.
Depending on the tradition, people with religious faith may have been exposed to a higher number of literal doomsday prophets. The word “prophet” is perhaps a clue? So I think it’s natural for them to pattern-match technological “prophets” of doom with religious prophets of doom and dismiss both.
To argue against this, I would emphasize the differences. Technological predictions of extinction are not based on mysterious texts from the past, or personal unverifiable revelations from God, but on concrete evidence that anyone can look at and form their own opinions. Also, forecasters generally have a lot of uncertainty about exactly what will happen, and when. Forecasts change in response to new information, such as the recent success of generative AI. Highlighting these differences can help break the immediate pattern match. Pointing to other technological catastrophic risks, such as climate change, nuclear warfare, etc, can also properly locate the discussion.
The suggested arguments in the opening post are great ideas as well. Given the examples of climate change and nuclear warfare, I think we have every reason to work towards further engagement with religious leaders on these issues.
Interesting insight. Sadly there isn’t much to be done against the beliefs of someone who is certain that god will save us.
Maybe the following: Assuming the frame of a believer, the signs of AGI being a dangerous technology seem obvious on closer inspection. If god exists, then we should therefore assume that this is an intentional test he has placed in front of us.
God has given us all the signs.
God helps those who help themselves.
I have found in my own life that I often hear this argument from people with some sort of religious faith, such that at some (maybe unconscious) level there is an assumption that nothing truly bad can happen unless it is “supposed” to. Not always, not exclusively, but could affect what counterarguments might be effective.
This argument makes no sense since religion bottoms out at deontology, not utilitarianism.
In a Christianity for example, if you think God would stop existential catastrophes, you have a deontological duty to do the same. And the vast majority of religions have some sort of deontological obligation to stop disasters (independently of whether divine intervention would have counter-factually happened).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helps_those_who_help_themselves
I don’t know that there is a single counter argument, but I would generalize across two groupings:
Arguments from the first group of religious people involve those who are capable of applying rationality to their belief systems, when pressed. For those, if they espouse a “god will save us” (in the physical world) then I’d suggest the best way to approach them is to call out the contradiction between their stated beliefs—e.g., Ask first “do you believe that god gave man free will?” and if so “wouldn’t saving us from our bad choices obviate free will?”
That’s just an example, first and foremost though, you cannot hand wave away their religious belief system. You have to apply yourself to understanding their priors and to engage with those priors. If you don’t, it’s the same thing as having a discussion with an accelerationist who refuses to agree to assumptions like the “Orthogonality Thesis” or “Instrumental Convergence.” You’ll spend an unreasonable amount of time debating assumptions that you’ll likely make no meaningful progress on the topic you actually care about.
But in so questioning the religious person, you might find they fall into a different grouping. The group of people who are nihilistic in essence. Since “god will save us” could be metaphysical, they could mean instead that so long as they live as a “good {insert religious type of person}” that god will save them in the afterlife, then whether they live or die here in the physical world matters less to them. This is inclusive of those who believe in a rapture myth—that man is, in fact, doomed to be destroyed.
And I don’t know how to engage with someone in the second group. A nihilist will not be moved by rational arguments that are antithetical to their nihilism.
The larger problem (as I see it) is that their beliefs may not contain an inherent contradiction. They may be aligned to eventual human doom.
(Certainly rationality and nihilism are not on a single spectrum, so there are other variations possible, but for the purposes of generalizing… those are the two main groups, I believe.)
Or, if you prefer less religiously, the bias is: Everything that has a beginning has an end.
I don’t think this specific free will argument is convincing. Preventing someone’s death doesn’t obviate their free will, whether the savior is human, deity, alien, AI, or anything else. Think of doctors, parents, firefighters, etc. So I don’t see that there’s a contradiction between “God will physically save humans from extinction” and “God gave humans free will”. Our forthcoming extinction is not a matter of conscious choice.
I also think this would be a misdirected debate. Suppose, for a moment, that God saves us, physically, from extinction. Due to God’s subtle intervention the AI hits an integer overflow after killing the first 2^31 people and shuts down. Was it therefore okay to create the AI? Obviously not. Billions of deaths are bad under a very wide range of belief systems.
I understand where you’re going, but doctors, parents, firefighters are not possessing of ‘typical godlike attributes’ such as omniscience and omnipotence and a declaration of intent not to use such powers in a way that would obviate free will.
Nothing about humans saving other humans using fallible human means is remotely the same as a god changing the laws of physics to effect a miracle. And one human taking actions does not obviate the free will of another human. But when God can, through omnipotence, set up scenarios so that you have no choice at all… obviating free will… its a different class of thing all together.
So your responds reads like strawman fallacy to me.
In conclusion: I accept that my position isn’t convincing for you.
I agree with you that “you have to apply yourself to understanding their priors and to engage with those priors”. If someone’s beliefs are, for example:
God will intervene to prevent human extinction
God will not obviate free will
God cannot prevent human extinction without obviating free will
Then I agree there is an apparent contradiction, and this is a reasonable thing to ask them about. They could resolve it in three ways.
Maybe god will not intervene. (very roughly: deism)
Maybe god will intervene and obviate free will. (very roughly: conservative theism)
Maybe god will intervene and preserve free will. (very roughly: liberal theism)
However they resolve it, discussion can go from there.
Depending on the tradition, people with religious faith may have been exposed to a higher number of literal doomsday prophets. The word “prophet” is perhaps a clue? So I think it’s natural for them to pattern-match technological “prophets” of doom with religious prophets of doom and dismiss both.
To argue against this, I would emphasize the differences. Technological predictions of extinction are not based on mysterious texts from the past, or personal unverifiable revelations from God, but on concrete evidence that anyone can look at and form their own opinions. Also, forecasters generally have a lot of uncertainty about exactly what will happen, and when. Forecasts change in response to new information, such as the recent success of generative AI. Highlighting these differences can help break the immediate pattern match. Pointing to other technological catastrophic risks, such as climate change, nuclear warfare, etc, can also properly locate the discussion.
The suggested arguments in the opening post are great ideas as well. Given the examples of climate change and nuclear warfare, I think we have every reason to work towards further engagement with religious leaders on these issues.
Interesting insight. Sadly there isn’t much to be done against the beliefs of someone who is certain that god will save us.
Maybe the following: Assuming the frame of a believer, the signs of AGI being a dangerous technology seem obvious on closer inspection. If god exists, then we should therefore assume that this is an intentional test he has placed in front of us. God has given us all the signs. God helps those who help themselves.