But maybe that’s the correct outcome? If 80% of the population truly believes that some people should die, maybe they should. What higher authority can we appeal to?
I’m not saying I think minorities should die. But I also don’t think the majority thinks that either. So it’s just an absurd hypothetical. You could say the same thing about CEV in general. “We shouldn’t take the utility function of humanity, because what if it’s bad?” Bad according to what? What higher utility function are we using to determine badness? Some individual’s?
I think Condorcet voting is the best way to compromise between a lot of different people’s values. It tends to favor moderates and compromises. Especially the Minimax method i mentioned.
I don’t think this system is great, I just think it’s the best we can possibly do.
“We shouldn’t take the utility function of humanity, because what if it’s bad?” Bad according to what? What higher utility function are we using to determine badness? Some individual’s?
You’ll have to convince me that taking other people’s utility function into account is consistent with my utility function.
It’s not. I literally discussed that in my first comment. If you can become dictator, it’s definitely in your interest to do so. Instead of turning power over to a democracy.
But I would much rather live under a democracy than a dictatorship where I’m not dictator.
But maybe that’s the correct outcome? If 80% of the population truly believes that some people should die, maybe they should. What higher authority can we appeal to?
Really?
So it’s just an absurd hypothetical.
I wonder if you heard the word “genocide” before. Not in the context of hypotheticals, but as a recurring feature of human history.
If 80% of the population has a certain value, how can you say that value is wrong? Statistically you are far more likely to be in that 80%.
And the alternative isn’t “you get to be dictator and have all your values maximized without compromise”. It’s “some random individual is picked from the population and gets his values maximized over everyone else’s.” Democracy of values is far preferable.
I wonder if you heard the word “genocide” before. Not in the context of hypotheticals, but as a recurring feature of human history.
By functioning democracies? With a perfectly rational and informed population?
That’s the important part of CEV, or at least my interpretation of it. The AI predicts what you would decide, if you knew all the relevant information and had plenty of time to think about it. I’m not suggesting a regular democracy where the voters barely know anything.
Indeed, it is not. The question mark at the end might indicate that it is a question.
If 80% of the population has a certain value, how can you say that value is wrong?
I don’t see any problems with this whatsoever. I am not obligated to convert to the values of the majority. What is the issue that you see?
By functioning democracies?
There is a bit of a true Scotsman odor to this question :-) but let me point out my example upthread and ask you whether the Nazi party came to power democratically.
AI predicts what you would decide
At this level you might as well cut to the chase and go straight to “I wish for you to do what I should wish for”. No need to try to tell God… err.. AI how to do it.
I don’t see any problems with this whatsoever. I am not obligated to convert to the values of the majority. What is the issue that you see?
And they aren’t obligated to convert to your values. Not everyone can have their way! Democratic voting is the fairest way of making a decision when people can’t agree.
There is a bit of a true Scotsman odor to this question :-) but let me point out my example upthread and ask you whether the Nazi party came to power democratically.
Yes I know it’s No-True-Scotsman-y, but I really believe that a totally informed population would make very different decisions than an angry mob during a war and depression.
And even your examples are not convincing. Internment during wartime wasn’t anywhere near the level of genocide. And the Nazi election was far from fair:
...the Nazis “unleashed a campaign of violence and terror that dwarfed anything seen so far.” Storm troopers began attacking trade union and Communist Party (KPD) offices and the homes of left-wingers. In the second half of February, the violence was extended to the Social Democrats, with gangs of brownshirts breaking up Social Democrat meetings and beating up their speakers and audiences. Issues of Social Democratic newspapers were banned. Twenty newspapers of the Centre Party, a party of Catholic Germans, were banned in mid-February for criticizing the new government. Government officials known to be Centre Party supporters were dismissed from their offices, and stormtroopers violently attacked party meetings in Westphalia.
Six days before the scheduled election date, the German parliament building was set alight in the Reichstag fire, allegedly by the Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe. This event reduced the popularity of the KPD… This emergency law removed many civil liberties and allowed the arrest of… 4,000 leaders and members of the KPD shortly before the election, suppressing the Communist vote and consolidating the position of the Nazis. The KPD was effectively outlawed...
The resources of big business and the state were thrown behind the Nazis’ campaign to achieve saturation coverage all over Germany. Brownshirts and SS patrolled and marched menacingly through the streets of cities and towns. A “combination of terror, repression and propaganda was mobilized in every… community, large and small, across the land.” To further ensure the outcome of the vote would be a Nazi majority, Nazi organizations “monitored” the vote process. In Prussia 50,000 members of the SS, SA and Stahlhelm were ordered to monitor the votes as deputy sheriffs by acting Interior Minister Hermann Göring.
.
At this level you might as well cut to the chase and go straight to “I wish for you to do what I should wish for”. No need to try to tell God… err.. AI how to do it.
Well I did mention that in my first comment. This is more of an aesthetic thing to talk about. Once we have an AI we can just ask it how to solve this problem.
But I still think it’s somewhat important to think about. Because if we go with your solution, we just get whatever the creator of the AI wants. He becomes supreme dictator of the universe forever, and forces his values on everyone for eternity. I would much rather have CEV or something like it.
Democratic voting is the fairest way of making a decision when people can’t agree.
That sounds like an article of faith.
“Fair” is a very… relative world. Calling something “fair” rarely means more than “I like / approve of it”.
This is more of an aesthetic thing to talk about.
Ah. Well, speaking aesthetically, I find the elevation of mob rule to be the ultimate moral principle ugly and repugnant. Y’know, de gustibus ’n’all...
Well see my edit to my first comment. I’ll paste it here:
After giving it some more thought, I’m not sure voting systems are actually desirable. The whole point of voting is that people can’t be trusted to just specify their utility functions. The perfect voting system would be for each person to give a number to each candidate based on how much utility they’d get from them being elected. But that’s extremely susceptible to tactical voting.
However with FAI, it’s possible we could come up with some way of keeping people honest, or peering into their brains and getting their true value function. That adds a great deal of complexity though. And it requires trusting the AI to do a complex, arbitrary, and subjective task. Which means you must have already solved FAI.
Do you agree that the fairest system would be to combine everyone’s utility functions and maximize them? Of course somehow giving everyone equal weight to avoid utility monsters and other issues. I think these issues can be worked out.
If so, do you agree that voting systems are the best compromise when you can’t just read people’s utility functions? And need to worry about tactical voting? Because that is basically what I was getting at.
If you don’t agree to the above, then I don’t understand your objection. CEV is about somehow finding the best compromise of all humans’ utility functions. About combining them all. All I’m talking about is more concrete methods of doing that.
Do you agree that the fairest system would be to combine everyone’s utility functions and maximize them? Of course somehow giving everyone equal weight to avoid utility monsters and other issues. I think these issues can be worked out.
Anything you can do maximizes some combination of people’s utility functions. So it is trivially true that the fairest system is a system which uses some combination of people’s utility functions. Unless you can first describe how you are going to avoid utility monsters and other perils of utilitarianism, you really haven’t said anything useful.
Do you agree that the fairest system would be to combine everyone’s utility functions and maximize them?
No, I do not. I do not think that humans have coherent utility functions. I don’t think utilities of different people can be meaningfully combined, too.
But maybe that’s the correct outcome? If 80% of the population truly believes that some people should die, maybe they should. What higher authority can we appeal to?
I’m not saying I think minorities should die. But I also don’t think the majority thinks that either. So it’s just an absurd hypothetical. You could say the same thing about CEV in general. “We shouldn’t take the utility function of humanity, because what if it’s bad?” Bad according to what? What higher utility function are we using to determine badness? Some individual’s?
I think Condorcet voting is the best way to compromise between a lot of different people’s values. It tends to favor moderates and compromises. Especially the Minimax method i mentioned.
I don’t think this system is great, I just think it’s the best we can possibly do.
You’ll have to convince me that taking other people’s utility function into account is consistent with my utility function.
It’s not. I literally discussed that in my first comment. If you can become dictator, it’s definitely in your interest to do so. Instead of turning power over to a democracy.
But I would much rather live under a democracy than a dictatorship where I’m not dictator.
Really?
I wonder if you heard the word “genocide” before. Not in the context of hypotheticals, but as a recurring feature of human history.
That’s not an argument.
If 80% of the population has a certain value, how can you say that value is wrong? Statistically you are far more likely to be in that 80%.
And the alternative isn’t “you get to be dictator and have all your values maximized without compromise”. It’s “some random individual is picked from the population and gets his values maximized over everyone else’s.” Democracy of values is far preferable.
By functioning democracies? With a perfectly rational and informed population?
That’s the important part of CEV, or at least my interpretation of it. The AI predicts what you would decide, if you knew all the relevant information and had plenty of time to think about it. I’m not suggesting a regular democracy where the voters barely know anything.
Indeed, it is not. The question mark at the end might indicate that it is a question.
I don’t see any problems with this whatsoever. I am not obligated to convert to the values of the majority. What is the issue that you see?
There is a bit of a true Scotsman odor to this question :-) but let me point out my example upthread and ask you whether the Nazi party came to power democratically.
At this level you might as well cut to the chase and go straight to “I wish for you to do what I should wish for”. No need to try to tell God… err.. AI how to do it.
And they aren’t obligated to convert to your values. Not everyone can have their way! Democratic voting is the fairest way of making a decision when people can’t agree.
Yes I know it’s No-True-Scotsman-y, but I really believe that a totally informed population would make very different decisions than an angry mob during a war and depression.
And even your examples are not convincing. Internment during wartime wasn’t anywhere near the level of genocide. And the Nazi election was far from fair:
.
Well I did mention that in my first comment. This is more of an aesthetic thing to talk about. Once we have an AI we can just ask it how to solve this problem.
But I still think it’s somewhat important to think about. Because if we go with your solution, we just get whatever the creator of the AI wants. He becomes supreme dictator of the universe forever, and forces his values on everyone for eternity. I would much rather have CEV or something like it.
That sounds like an article of faith.
“Fair” is a very… relative world. Calling something “fair” rarely means more than “I like / approve of it”.
Ah. Well, speaking aesthetically, I find the elevation of mob rule to be the ultimate moral principle ugly and repugnant. Y’know, de gustibus ’n’all...
I don’t believe I proposed any.
Well see my edit to my first comment. I’ll paste it here:
Do you agree that the fairest system would be to combine everyone’s utility functions and maximize them? Of course somehow giving everyone equal weight to avoid utility monsters and other issues. I think these issues can be worked out.
If so, do you agree that voting systems are the best compromise when you can’t just read people’s utility functions? And need to worry about tactical voting? Because that is basically what I was getting at.
If you don’t agree to the above, then I don’t understand your objection. CEV is about somehow finding the best compromise of all humans’ utility functions. About combining them all. All I’m talking about is more concrete methods of doing that.
Anything you can do maximizes some combination of people’s utility functions. So it is trivially true that the fairest system is a system which uses some combination of people’s utility functions. Unless you can first describe how you are going to avoid utility monsters and other perils of utilitarianism, you really haven’t said anything useful.
No, I do not. I do not think that humans have coherent utility functions. I don’t think utilities of different people can be meaningfully combined, too.
Ah, yes, the famous business plan of the underpants gnomes...
No, I do not. They might be best given some definitions of “best” and given some conditionals, but they are not always best regardless of anything.
What makes you think it is possible?