I noticed a while ago that it’s difficult to have a more concise and accurate alignment desiderata than “we want to build a god that loves us”. It is actually interesting that the word “love” doesn’t occur very frequently in alignment/FAI literature, given that it’s exactly (almost definitionally) the concept we want FAI to embody.
I don’t want a god that loves humanity. I want a god that loves the good parts of humanity. Antisemitism is a part of humanity and I hate it and I prescribe hating it.
Of course conciseness trades off against precision; when I say “love” I mean a wise, thoughtful love, like the love of an intelligent and experienced father for this child. If the child starts spouting antisemitic tropes, the father neither stops loving the child, nor blandly accepts the bigotry, but rather offers guidance and perspective, from a loving and open-hearted place, aimed at dissuading the child from a self-destructive path.
Unfortunately you actually have to understand what a wise thoughtful mature love actually consists of in order to instantiate it in silico, and that’s obviously the hard part.
Of course, the father does not love every part of the child; he loves the good and innocent neutral parts of the child; he does not love the antisemitism of the child. The father may be tempted to say that the child is the good and innocent neutral brain parts that are sharing a brain with the evil parts. This maneuver of framing might work on the child.
How convenient that the love which drives out antisemitism is “mature” rather than immature, when adults are the ones who invite antisemitism through cynical demagogic political thought. Cynical demagogic hypotheses do not occur to children undisturbed by adults. The more realistic scenario here is that the father is the antisemite. If the child is lucky enough to arm themself with philosophy, they will be the one with the opportunity to show their good friendship to their father by saving his good parts from his bad parts.
But the father has had more time to develop an identity. Maybe he feels by now that antisemitism is a part of his natural, authentic, true self. Had he held tight to the virtues of children while he was a child, such as the absence of cynical demagoguery, he would not have to choose between natural authenticity and morality.
I think you’re arguing against a position I don’t hold. I merely aim to point out that the definition of CEV, a process that wants for us what we would want for ourselves if we were smarter and more morally developed, looks a lot like the love of a wise parental figure.
If your argument is that parents can be unwise, this is obviously true.
I noticed a while ago that it’s difficult to have a more concise and accurate alignment desiderata than “we want to build a god that loves us”. It is actually interesting that the word “love” doesn’t occur very frequently in alignment/FAI literature, given that it’s exactly (almost definitionally) the concept we want FAI to embody.
I don’t want a god that loves humanity. I want a god that loves the good parts of humanity. Antisemitism is a part of humanity and I hate it and I prescribe hating it.
Of course conciseness trades off against precision; when I say “love” I mean a wise, thoughtful love, like the love of an intelligent and experienced father for this child. If the child starts spouting antisemitic tropes, the father neither stops loving the child, nor blandly accepts the bigotry, but rather offers guidance and perspective, from a loving and open-hearted place, aimed at dissuading the child from a self-destructive path.
Unfortunately you actually have to understand what a wise thoughtful mature love actually consists of in order to instantiate it in silico, and that’s obviously the hard part.
Of course, the father does not love every part of the child; he loves the good and innocent neutral parts of the child; he does not love the antisemitism of the child. The father may be tempted to say that the child is the good and innocent neutral brain parts that are sharing a brain with the evil parts. This maneuver of framing might work on the child.
How convenient that the love which drives out antisemitism is “mature” rather than immature, when adults are the ones who invite antisemitism through cynical demagogic political thought. Cynical demagogic hypotheses do not occur to children undisturbed by adults. The more realistic scenario here is that the father is the antisemite. If the child is lucky enough to arm themself with philosophy, they will be the one with the opportunity to show their good friendship to their father by saving his good parts from his bad parts.
But the father has had more time to develop an identity. Maybe he feels by now that antisemitism is a part of his natural, authentic, true self. Had he held tight to the virtues of children while he was a child, such as the absence of cynical demagoguery, he would not have to choose between natural authenticity and morality.
I think you’re arguing against a position I don’t hold. I merely aim to point out that the definition of CEV, a process that wants for us what we would want for ourselves if we were smarter and more morally developed, looks a lot like the love of a wise parental figure.
If your argument is that parents can be unwise, this is obviously true.