“Do what H wants A to do” would be a moderate degree of alignment whereas “Successfully figuring out and satisfying H’s true/normative values” would be a much higher degree of alignment (in that sense of alignment).
In what sense is that a more beneficial goal?
“Successfully do X” seems to be the same goal as X, isn’t it?
“Figure out H’s true/normative values” is manifestly a subgoal of “satisfy H’s true/normative values.” Why would we care about that except as a subgoal?
So is the difference entirely between “satisfy H’s true/normative values” and “do what H wants”? Do you disagree with one of the previous two bullet points? Is the difference that you think “reliably pursues” implies something about “actually achieves”?
If the difference is mostly between “what H wants” and “what H truly/normatively values”, then this is just a communication difficulty. For me adding “truly” or “normatively” to “values” is just emphasis and doesn’t change the meaning.
I try to make it clear that I’m using “want” to refer to some hard-to-define idealization rather than some narrow concept, but I can see how “want” might not be a good term for this, I’d be fine using “values” or something along those lines if that would be clearer.
(This is why I wrote:
What H wants” is even more problematic than “trying.” Clarifying what this expression means, and how to operationalize it in a way that could be used to inform an AI’s behavior, is part of the alignment problem. Without additional clarity on this concept, we will not be able to build an AI that tries to do what H wants it to do.
If the difference is mostly between “what H wants” and “what H truly/normatively values”, then this is just a communication difficulty. For me adding “truly” or “normatively” to “values” is just emphasis and doesn’t change the meaning.
Ah, yes that is a big part of what I thought was the difference. (Actually I may have understood at some point that you meant “want” in an idealized sense but then forgot and didn’t re-read the post to pick up that understanding again.)
ETA: I guess another thing that contributed to this confusion is your talk of values evolving over time, and of preferences about how they evolve, which seems to suggest that by “values” you mean something like “current understanding of values” or “interim values” rather than “true/normative values” since it doesn’t seem to make sense to want one’s true/normative values to change over time.
I try to make it clear that I’m using “want” to refer to some hard-to-define idealization rather than some narrow concept, but I can see how “want” might not be a good term for this, I’d be fine using “values” or something along those lines if that would be clearer.
I don’t think “values” is good either. Both “want” and “values” are commonly used words that typically (in everyday usage) mean something like “someone’s current understanding of what they want” or what I called “interim values”. I don’t see how you can expect people not to be frequently confused if you use either of them to mean “true/normative values”. Like the situation with de re / de dicto alignment, I suggest it’s not worth trying to economize on the adjectives here.
Another difference between your definition of alignment and “reliably pursues beneficial goals” is that the latter has “reliably” in it which suggests more of a de re reading. To use your example “Suppose A thinks that H likes apples, and so goes to the store to buy some apples, but H really prefers oranges.” I think most people would call an A that correctly understands H’s preferences (and gets oranges) more reliably pursuing beneficial goals.
Given this, perhaps the easiest way to reduce confusions moving forward is to just use some adjectives to distinguish your use of the words “want”, “values”, or “alignment” from other people’s.
If the difference is mostly between “what H wants” and “what H truly/normatively values”, then this is just a communication difficulty. For me adding “truly” or “normatively” to “values” is just emphasis and doesn’t change the meaning.
So “wants” means a want more general than an object-level desire (like wanting to buy oranges), and it already takes into account the possibility of H changing his mind about what he wants if H discovers that his wants contradict his normative values?
If that’s right, how is this generalization defined? (E.g. The CEV was “what H wants in the limit of infinite intelligence, reasoning time and complete information”.)
In what sense is that a more beneficial goal?
“Successfully do X” seems to be the same goal as X, isn’t it?
“Figure out H’s true/normative values” is manifestly a subgoal of “satisfy H’s true/normative values.” Why would we care about that except as a subgoal?
So is the difference entirely between “satisfy H’s true/normative values” and “do what H wants”? Do you disagree with one of the previous two bullet points? Is the difference that you think “reliably pursues” implies something about “actually achieves”?
If the difference is mostly between “what H wants” and “what H truly/normatively values”, then this is just a communication difficulty. For me adding “truly” or “normatively” to “values” is just emphasis and doesn’t change the meaning.
I try to make it clear that I’m using “want” to refer to some hard-to-define idealization rather than some narrow concept, but I can see how “want” might not be a good term for this, I’d be fine using “values” or something along those lines if that would be clearer.
(This is why I wrote:
)
Ah, yes that is a big part of what I thought was the difference. (Actually I may have understood at some point that you meant “want” in an idealized sense but then forgot and didn’t re-read the post to pick up that understanding again.)
ETA: I guess another thing that contributed to this confusion is your talk of values evolving over time, and of preferences about how they evolve, which seems to suggest that by “values” you mean something like “current understanding of values” or “interim values” rather than “true/normative values” since it doesn’t seem to make sense to want one’s true/normative values to change over time.
I don’t think “values” is good either. Both “want” and “values” are commonly used words that typically (in everyday usage) mean something like “someone’s current understanding of what they want” or what I called “interim values”. I don’t see how you can expect people not to be frequently confused if you use either of them to mean “true/normative values”. Like the situation with de re / de dicto alignment, I suggest it’s not worth trying to economize on the adjectives here.
Another difference between your definition of alignment and “reliably pursues beneficial goals” is that the latter has “reliably” in it which suggests more of a de re reading. To use your example “Suppose A thinks that H likes apples, and so goes to the store to buy some apples, but H really prefers oranges.” I think most people would call an A that correctly understands H’s preferences (and gets oranges) more reliably pursuing beneficial goals.
Given this, perhaps the easiest way to reduce confusions moving forward is to just use some adjectives to distinguish your use of the words “want”, “values”, or “alignment” from other people’s.
So “wants” means a want more general than an object-level desire (like wanting to buy oranges), and it already takes into account the possibility of H changing his mind about what he wants if H discovers that his wants contradict his normative values?
If that’s right, how is this generalization defined? (E.g. The CEV was “what H wants in the limit of infinite intelligence, reasoning time and complete information”.)