It clarifies some of your statements, yeah. (I think it’s not the normal usage; related to but not equal to blame, there’s roles, and causal fault routing through peoples’ expectations, like “So-and-so took responsibility for calming down the toddler, so we left, but they weren’t able, that’s why there wasn’t anyone there who successfully calmed them down”.)
I don’t think most people have reliable access to this way of being scared in practice though. Most fear becomes food for unFriendly hypercreatures.
Agreed; possibly I’d be more optimistic than you about some instances of fear, on the margin, but whatever. Someone Should would be helping others if they were to write about healthy fear...
Agreed, and also irrelevant. Did my spelling out of responsibility up above clarify why?
Not exactly? I think you’re saying, the point is, they can’t make themselves exercise, so they can’t be responsible, and it doesn’t help to bang their head against a non-motivating wall.
What’s important to me here is something like: there’s (usually? often?) some things “right there inside” the Should which are very worth saving. Like, it’s obviously not a coincidence which Shoulds people have, and the practice of Shoulding oneself isn’t only there because of egregores. I think that the Shoulds often have to do with what people really care for, and that their caring shows itself (obscurely, mediatedly, and cooptably/fakeably) in the application of “external” willpower. (I think of Dua Lipa’s song New Rules )
So I want to avoid people being sort of gaslit into not trusting their reason—not trusting that when they reach an abstract conclusion about what would have consequences they like, it’s worth putting weight on—by bluntly pressuring them to treat their explicit/symbolic “decisions” as suspect. (I mean, they are suspect, and as you argue, they aren’t exactly “decisions” if you then have to try and fail to make yourself carry them out, and clearly all is not well with the supposed practice of being motivated by abstract conclusions. Nevertheless, you maybe thought they were decisions and were intending to make that decision, and your intention to make the decision to exercise / remove X-risk was likely connected to real care.)
Now it’s way, way more obvious (at least to me) that that path just isn’t a viable one.
Huh. Are you saying that you’ve updated to think that solving technical AI alignment is so extremely difficult that there’s just no chance, because that doesn’t sound like your other statements? Maybe you’re saying that we / roughly all people can’t even really work on alignment, because being in egregores messes with one’s ability to access what an AI is supposed to be aligned to (and therefore to analyze the hypothetical situation of alignedness), so “purely technical” alignment work is doomed?
I’m saying that technical alignment seems (1) necessary and (2) difficult and (3) maaaaaybe feasible. So there’s causal power there. If you’re saying, people can’t decide to really try solving alignment, so there’s no causal power there… Well, I think that’s mostly right in some sense, but not the right way to use the concept of causal power. There’s still causal power in the node “technical alignment theory”. For most people there’s no causal power in “decide to solve alignment, and then beat yourself about not doing it”. You have to track these separately! Otherwise you say
Sorting out AI alignment in computers is focusing entirely on the endgame. That’s not where the causal power is.
Instead of saying what I think you mean(??), which is “you (almost all readers) can’t decide to help with technical AI alignment, so pressing the button in your head labeled ‘solve alignment’ just hurts yourself and makes you good egregore food, and if you want to solve AI alignment you have to first sort that out”. Maybe I’m missing you though!
I have a hard time imagining a plausible world here that doesn’t just pull the plug on that 10% and either persuade them or make them irrelevant.
Maybe we have different ideas of “unified”? I was responding to
If the whole world were unified on AI alignment being an issue, it’d just be a problem to solve.
The problem that’s upstream of this is the lack of will. Same thing with cryonics really. Or aging.[....] The problem is that people’s minds aren’t clear enough to look at the problem for real.
I agree with:
If the 90% of the world were unified on X being an issue, it’d just be a problem to solve.
if X is aging or cryonics, because aging and cryonics aren’t things that have terrible deadlines imposed by a smallish, unilaterally acting, highly economically incentivized research field.
Where are those 10% getting their resources from?
Investors who don’t particularly have to be in the public eye.
How are they operating without any effects that the 90% can notice?
By camouflaging their activities. Generally governmentally imposed restrictions can be routed around, I think, given enough incentive (cf. tax evasion)? Especially in a realm where everything is totally ethereal electrical signals that most people don’t understand (except the server farms).
What was the process by which the 90% got aligned?
I don’t know. Are you perhaps suggesting that your vision of human alignedness implies that the remaining 10% would also become aligned, e.g. because everyone else is so much happier and alive, or can offer arguments that are very persuasive to their aligned souls? Or, it implies competence to really tactically prevent the 10% from doing mad science? Something like that is vaguely plausible, and therefore indeed promising, but not obviously the case!
I’m saying that these calls to collective action to work on it without addressing thecurrenthostile superintelligences hacking our minds and cultures is just ludicrous.
Agreed.… I think.… though I’d maybe admit a lot more than you would as “just stating propositions” and therefore fine. IDK. Examples could be interesting (and the OP might possibly have been less confusing to me with some examples of what you’re responding to).
It clarifies some of your statements, yeah. (I think it’s not the normal usage; related to but not equal to blame, there’s roles, and causal fault routing through peoples’ expectations, like “So-and-so took responsibility for calming down the toddler, so we left, but they weren’t able, that’s why there wasn’t anyone there who successfully calmed them down”.)
Agreed; possibly I’d be more optimistic than you about some instances of fear, on the margin, but whatever. Someone
Shouldwould be helping others if they were to write about healthy fear...Not exactly? I think you’re saying, the point is, they can’t make themselves exercise, so they can’t be responsible, and it doesn’t help to bang their head against a non-motivating wall.
What’s important to me here is something like: there’s (usually? often?) some things “right there inside” the Should which are very worth saving. Like, it’s obviously not a coincidence which Shoulds people have, and the practice of Shoulding oneself isn’t only there because of egregores. I think that the Shoulds often have to do with what people really care for, and that their caring shows itself (obscurely, mediatedly, and cooptably/fakeably) in the application of “external” willpower. (I think of Dua Lipa’s song New Rules )
So I want to avoid people being sort of gaslit into not trusting their reason—not trusting that when they reach an abstract conclusion about what would have consequences they like, it’s worth putting weight on—by bluntly pressuring them to treat their explicit/symbolic “decisions” as suspect. (I mean, they are suspect, and as you argue, they aren’t exactly “decisions” if you then have to try and fail to make yourself carry them out, and clearly all is not well with the supposed practice of being motivated by abstract conclusions. Nevertheless, you maybe thought they were decisions and were intending to make that decision, and your intention to make the decision to exercise / remove X-risk was likely connected to real care.)
Huh. Are you saying that you’ve updated to think that solving technical AI alignment is so extremely difficult that there’s just no chance, because that doesn’t sound like your other statements? Maybe you’re saying that we / roughly all people can’t even really work on alignment, because being in egregores messes with one’s ability to access what an AI is supposed to be aligned to (and therefore to analyze the hypothetical situation of alignedness), so “purely technical” alignment work is doomed?
I’m saying that technical alignment seems (1) necessary and (2) difficult and (3) maaaaaybe feasible. So there’s causal power there. If you’re saying, people can’t decide to really try solving alignment, so there’s no causal power there… Well, I think that’s mostly right in some sense, but not the right way to use the concept of causal power. There’s still causal power in the node “technical alignment theory”. For most people there’s no causal power in “decide to solve alignment, and then beat yourself about not doing it”. You have to track these separately! Otherwise you say
Instead of saying what I think you mean(??), which is “you (almost all readers) can’t decide to help with technical AI alignment, so pressing the button in your head labeled ‘solve alignment’ just hurts yourself and makes you good egregore food, and if you want to solve AI alignment you have to first sort that out”. Maybe I’m missing you though!
Maybe we have different ideas of “unified”? I was responding to
I agree with:
if X is aging or cryonics, because aging and cryonics aren’t things that have terrible deadlines imposed by a smallish, unilaterally acting, highly economically incentivized research field.
Investors who don’t particularly have to be in the public eye.
By camouflaging their activities. Generally governmentally imposed restrictions can be routed around, I think, given enough incentive (cf. tax evasion)? Especially in a realm where everything is totally ethereal electrical signals that most people don’t understand (except the server farms).
I don’t know. Are you perhaps suggesting that your vision of human alignedness implies that the remaining 10% would also become aligned, e.g. because everyone else is so much happier and alive, or can offer arguments that are very persuasive to their aligned souls? Or, it implies competence to really tactically prevent the 10% from doing mad science? Something like that is vaguely plausible, and therefore indeed promising, but not obviously the case!
Agreed.… I think.… though I’d maybe admit a lot more than you would as “just stating propositions” and therefore fine. IDK. Examples could be interesting (and the OP might possibly have been less confusing to me with some examples of what you’re responding to).