Becoming batman for stopping child abuse is not okay, because the easiest way to achieve that goal might just involve an Orwellian system of total control. Indeed the people in government who push for such schemes today may think of themselves as batmen for their respective noble goals. The goal of “protecting the kids” has an especially bad record, probably because the image of a suffering child appeals so strongly to the emotions of politicians and voters alike. Eliezer has sorta explained why something like FAI may be the only goal worth becoming batman for.
If you actually want to protect children rather than do something which looks like protecting them, an Orwellian solution doesn’t look likely to me. There’s a risk that the authorities will end up doing very bad things to children if there’s that much unaccountable power.
I suggest that the most stable solution would be finding a reliable, extremely attractive way of teaching empathy. I don’t know if this would take becoming batman—to the extent that it does, it would be a very different sort of batman than it takes to get a positive singularity, though it might be related by way of accelerating CEV.
The most reliable way of teaching empathy is by installing a chip in everyone’s brains.
You seem to envision nice batmen whose subgoal stomp hasn’t yet reached dangerous levels. I’m concerned about what happens when a human becomes really focused on their goal, so it overrides niceness.
Becoming batman for stopping child abuse is not okay, because the easiest way to achieve that goal might just involve an Orwellian system of total control. Indeed the people in government who push for such schemes today may think of themselves as batmen for their respective noble goals. The goal of “protecting the kids” has an especially bad record, probably because the image of a suffering child appeals so strongly to the emotions of politicians and voters alike. Eliezer has sorta explained why something like FAI may be the only goal worth becoming batman for.
If you actually want to protect children rather than do something which looks like protecting them, an Orwellian solution doesn’t look likely to me. There’s a risk that the authorities will end up doing very bad things to children if there’s that much unaccountable power.
I suggest that the most stable solution would be finding a reliable, extremely attractive way of teaching empathy. I don’t know if this would take becoming batman—to the extent that it does, it would be a very different sort of batman than it takes to get a positive singularity, though it might be related by way of accelerating CEV.
The most reliable way of teaching empathy is by installing a chip in everyone’s brains.
You seem to envision nice batmen whose subgoal stomp hasn’t yet reached dangerous levels. I’m concerned about what happens when a human becomes really focused on their goal, so it overrides niceness.