Thanks for adding ideas, I will add them in the next version of the map.
I think that the way we explore s-risks should be beneficial to our future. And for that we need that s-risks will not exclude x-risks, or create them. However, the lines of reasoning where life in general is net-negative, or human sufferings are less important than animal sufferings, or running simulation or reinforcement learning algorithms are regarded as mindcrime - are themself able to create dystopian future without any measurable reduction of sufferings.
To balance x-risks and s-risks we need to understand that non-existence is also a form of sufferings in a provable way.
At first, we need to define suffering not based on pain, but based on values and choices. It is measurable and is according to common sence. Some masochists may love pain, or in some cases pain is felt but not regarded as bad.
However, if define suffering only through pain we have problems:
1) non-existence becomes preferable in many situations, about which common sense says that they should bot be preferable.
2) Wireheading becomes good solution
3) Sufferings become unmeasurable, as we can’t measure other’s qualia.
4) We may start to decide about others’ preferences against their will, but based on out (false) extrapolation of it.
So defining suffering through values and choices will help to come to more consistent results. We could ask a person about its worse possible outcome, and in many cases it will be not only pain. It case of animals we often can’t ask, but we could make a thought experiment, would they prefer to live.
Such thought experiment helps us to establish that non-existence is a form of suffering for most actually existing humans and animals (but not mind in general). Imagine that my cat died. Is it suffering tomorrow? I could imagine that it will be alive tomorrow and measure two things 1) its pain level 2) its readiness to protect its life. The fact that it would protect its life if was alive—is an argument that non-existence fo it is a form of suffering, and it could be measured.
Thanks for adding ideas, I will add them in the next version of the map.
I think that the way we explore s-risks should be beneficial to our future. And for that we need that s-risks will not exclude x-risks, or create them. However, the lines of reasoning where life in general is net-negative, or human sufferings are less important than animal sufferings, or running simulation or reinforcement learning algorithms are regarded as mindcrime - are themself able to create dystopian future without any measurable reduction of sufferings.
To balance x-risks and s-risks we need to understand that non-existence is also a form of sufferings in a provable way.
At first, we need to define suffering not based on pain, but based on values and choices. It is measurable and is according to common sence. Some masochists may love pain, or in some cases pain is felt but not regarded as bad.
However, if define suffering only through pain we have problems:
1) non-existence becomes preferable in many situations, about which common sense says that they should bot be preferable.
2) Wireheading becomes good solution
3) Sufferings become unmeasurable, as we can’t measure other’s qualia.
4) We may start to decide about others’ preferences against their will, but based on out (false) extrapolation of it.
So defining suffering through values and choices will help to come to more consistent results. We could ask a person about its worse possible outcome, and in many cases it will be not only pain. It case of animals we often can’t ask, but we could make a thought experiment, would they prefer to live.
Such thought experiment helps us to establish that non-existence is a form of suffering for most actually existing humans and animals (but not mind in general). Imagine that my cat died. Is it suffering tomorrow? I could imagine that it will be alive tomorrow and measure two things 1) its pain level 2) its readiness to protect its life. The fact that it would protect its life if was alive—is an argument that non-existence fo it is a form of suffering, and it could be measured.