There’s a big difference between “optimizing poorly” and “pessimizing”, i.e. making the peoblem worse in ways that require some amount of cleverness. Mainstream institutions handling COVID was a case of pessimizing not just optimizing poorly, e.g. banning tests, telling people masks don’t work, and seizing mask shipments.
I don’t think you’re mis-stating the argument here, it really is a thing I’m arguing that institutions that make people act against their values can’t build FAI. As an example you could imagine an institution that optimized for some utility function U that was designed by committee. That U wouldn’t be the human utility function (unless the design-by-committee process is a reliable value loader), so forcing everyone to optimize U means you aren’t optimizing the human utility function, it has the same issues as a paperclip maximizer.
What if you try setting U = “get FAI”? Too bad, “FAI” is a lisp token, for it to have semantics it has to connect with human value somehow, i.e. someone actually wanting a thing and being assisted in getting it.
Maybe you can have a research org where some people are slaves and some aren’t, but for this to work you’d need a legible distinction between the two classes, so you don’t get confused into thinking you’re optimizing the slave’s utility function by enslaving them.
There’s a big difference between “optimizing poorly” and “pessimizing”, i.e. making the peoblem worse in ways that require some amount of cleverness. Mainstream institutions handling COVID was a case of pessimizing not just optimizing poorly, e.g. banning tests, telling people masks don’t work, and seizing mask shipments.
I don’t think you’re mis-stating the argument here, it really is a thing I’m arguing that institutions that make people act against their values can’t build FAI. As an example you could imagine an institution that optimized for some utility function U that was designed by committee. That U wouldn’t be the human utility function (unless the design-by-committee process is a reliable value loader), so forcing everyone to optimize U means you aren’t optimizing the human utility function, it has the same issues as a paperclip maximizer.
What if you try setting U = “get FAI”? Too bad, “FAI” is a lisp token, for it to have semantics it has to connect with human value somehow, i.e. someone actually wanting a thing and being assisted in getting it.
Maybe you can have a research org where some people are slaves and some aren’t, but for this to work you’d need a legible distinction between the two classes, so you don’t get confused into thinking you’re optimizing the slave’s utility function by enslaving them.
With a bit more meat, I can see what you’re referring to better.
I still don’t agree I think, but I can see why you would build that belief much better than I could before. I appreciate the clarification, thank you.