I find the idea that net utility among people in our world today is negitive to be an extremly implausible one. Even people who have brief periods of time where their utility is so far negitive and attempt suicide (but survive) generally regret it later, as that kind of deep depression is usually something that passes pretty quickly and before long they find themselves back in a positive-utility state regretting that they almost ended their life. Most people overall enjoy life, I think, and generally want to extend it for as long as possible.
Life can be hard, and it’s certanly nowhere close to optimal (yet?) but overall it’s definitely a positive utility state. So much so, that the possibility of losing life (fear, danger, illness, ect) is itself one of the most utility-lowering things that can happen to a person.
As for the other point; when comparing two possibile futures you also have to consider the possibility of either one happening. The only way you could get a future with an AI torturing vast numbers of people forever is if someone specifically designed it to do that. That’s not impossible, but it’s far, far more likely that a person would want to create an AI that would make large numbers of people happy, either altruistically, or for economic or political reasons, or as a cooperative effort between people, ect. (And of course it’s also possible that we fail and the AI just kills everyone, or that super-AI ends up not happening or not being as important as we think ect.) But just looking at those two probabilities, “AI-tortures-everyone” vs “AI-makes-people-happy”, if the second one is far more likely then the first one, then you need to give that greater utility weight.
Perhaps I was a bit misleading, but when I said the net utility of the Earth may be negative, I had in mind mostly fish and other animals that can feel pain. That was what Singer was talking about in the beginning essays. I am fairly certain net utility of humans is positive.
If you think that (1) net utility of humans is positive and (2) net utility of all animals is negative, and you are minded to try to deal with this by mass-killing, why would you then propose wiping out all animals including humans rather than wiping out all animals other than humans? Or even some more carefully targetted option like wiping out a subset of animals, chosen to improve that negative net utility as much as possible?
Honestly, it probably is. :) Not a bad sign as in you are a bad person, but bad sign as in this is an attractor space of Bad Thought Experiments that rationalist-identifying people seem to keep falling into because they’re interesting.
I like your plan better, gjm. Mass biocide must wait until after we’re no longer so dependent on the biosphere and we can properly target interventions. This is probably a post-singularity question.
Ok, that’s possible. I still don’t think it’s that likely, though. In general, at least from my limited experience with animals, most of them are pretty “happy/ content” most of the time (as much as that word can apply to most animals, so take it with a grain of salt), so long as they aren’t starving and aren’t in serious pain right at that moment in time. They do have other emotional responses, like anger or fear or pain, but those are only things that happen in special conditions.
I think that’s how evolution designed most animals; they’re really only under “stress” a small percentage of the time, and an animal under “stress” 24⁄7 (like, say, an animal in an unhappy state of captivity) often develops health problems very quickly because that’s not a natural state for them.
This is probably more true of some animals than others. From what I’ve read, most baboons and hyenas (for example) are pretty miserable because of their social structures. I remember reading about a case where the dominant members of a baboon troop died of disease and their culture shifted because of it. The surviving baboons were much happier.
Nature (evolution) literally invented pain in the first place, and it’s under no obligation to turn it off when it doesn’t impact genetic fitness. Elephants pass the mirror test. That’s very strong evidence that they’re conscious and self-aware. Yet they slowly starve to death once they’ve run out of teeth.
Oh, there is a lot of suffering in nature, no question. The world, as it evolved, isn’t anywhere close to optimal, for anything.
I do think it’s highly unlikely that net utility for your average animal over the course of it’s lifetime is going to be negitive, though. The “default state” of an animal when it is not under stress does not seem to be an unhappy one, in general.
I find the idea that net utility among people in our world today is negitive to be an extremly implausible one. Even people who have brief periods of time where their utility is so far negitive and attempt suicide (but survive) generally regret it later, as that kind of deep depression is usually something that passes pretty quickly and before long they find themselves back in a positive-utility state regretting that they almost ended their life. Most people overall enjoy life, I think, and generally want to extend it for as long as possible.
Life can be hard, and it’s certanly nowhere close to optimal (yet?) but overall it’s definitely a positive utility state. So much so, that the possibility of losing life (fear, danger, illness, ect) is itself one of the most utility-lowering things that can happen to a person.
As for the other point; when comparing two possibile futures you also have to consider the possibility of either one happening. The only way you could get a future with an AI torturing vast numbers of people forever is if someone specifically designed it to do that. That’s not impossible, but it’s far, far more likely that a person would want to create an AI that would make large numbers of people happy, either altruistically, or for economic or political reasons, or as a cooperative effort between people, ect. (And of course it’s also possible that we fail and the AI just kills everyone, or that super-AI ends up not happening or not being as important as we think ect.) But just looking at those two probabilities, “AI-tortures-everyone” vs “AI-makes-people-happy”, if the second one is far more likely then the first one, then you need to give that greater utility weight.
Perhaps I was a bit misleading, but when I said the net utility of the Earth may be negative, I had in mind mostly fish and other animals that can feel pain. That was what Singer was talking about in the beginning essays. I am fairly certain net utility of humans is positive.
If you think that (1) net utility of humans is positive and (2) net utility of all animals is negative, and you are minded to try to deal with this by mass-killing, why would you then propose wiping out all animals including humans rather than wiping out all animals other than humans? Or even some more carefully targetted option like wiping out a subset of animals, chosen to improve that negative net utility as much as possible?
[EDITED to fix screwed-up formatting]
Wow, that had for some reason never crossed my mind. That’s probably a very bad sign.
Honestly, it probably is. :) Not a bad sign as in you are a bad person, but bad sign as in this is an attractor space of Bad Thought Experiments that rationalist-identifying people seem to keep falling into because they’re interesting.
I like your plan better, gjm. Mass biocide must wait until after we’re no longer so dependent on the biosphere and we can properly target interventions. This is probably a post-singularity question.
Ok, that’s possible. I still don’t think it’s that likely, though. In general, at least from my limited experience with animals, most of them are pretty “happy/ content” most of the time (as much as that word can apply to most animals, so take it with a grain of salt), so long as they aren’t starving and aren’t in serious pain right at that moment in time. They do have other emotional responses, like anger or fear or pain, but those are only things that happen in special conditions.
I think that’s how evolution designed most animals; they’re really only under “stress” a small percentage of the time, and an animal under “stress” 24⁄7 (like, say, an animal in an unhappy state of captivity) often develops health problems very quickly because that’s not a natural state for them.
This is probably more true of some animals than others. From what I’ve read, most baboons and hyenas (for example) are pretty miserable because of their social structures. I remember reading about a case where the dominant members of a baboon troop died of disease and their culture shifted because of it. The surviving baboons were much happier.
Nature (evolution) literally invented pain in the first place, and it’s under no obligation to turn it off when it doesn’t impact genetic fitness. Elephants pass the mirror test. That’s very strong evidence that they’re conscious and self-aware. Yet they slowly starve to death once they’ve run out of teeth.
Oh, there is a lot of suffering in nature, no question. The world, as it evolved, isn’t anywhere close to optimal, for anything.
I do think it’s highly unlikely that net utility for your average animal over the course of it’s lifetime is going to be negitive, though. The “default state” of an animal when it is not under stress does not seem to be an unhappy one, in general.