I don’t think an AGI failing to behave in the anticipated manner due to its qualia* (orgasms during cat creation, in this case) is a special or mysterious problem, one that must be treated differently than errors in its reasoning, prediction ability, perception, or any aspect of its cognition. On second thought, I do think it’s different: it actually seems less important than errors in any of those systems. (And if an AGI is Provably Safe, it’s safe—we need only worry about its qualia from an ethical perspective.) My original comment here is (I believe) fairly mild: I do think the issue of qualia will involve a practical class of problems for FAI, and knowing how to frame and address them could benefit from more cross-pollination from more biology-focused theorists such as Chalmers and Tononi. And somewhat more boldly, a “qualia translation function” would be of use to all FAI projects.
*I share your qualms about the word, but there really are few alternatives with less baggage, unfortunately.
Ah, I see. Yeah, agreed that what we are calling qualia here (not to be confused with its usage elsewhere) underlie a class of practical problems. And what you’re calling a qualia translation function (which is related to what EY called a non-person predicate elsewhere, though finer-grained) is potentially useful for a number of reasons.
I don’t think an AGI failing to behave in the anticipated manner due to its qualia* (orgasms during cat creation, in this case) is a special or mysterious problem, one that must be treated differently than errors in its reasoning, prediction ability, perception, or any aspect of its cognition. On second thought, I do think it’s different: it actually seems less important than errors in any of those systems. (And if an AGI is Provably Safe, it’s safe—we need only worry about its qualia from an ethical perspective.) My original comment here is (I believe) fairly mild: I do think the issue of qualia will involve a practical class of problems for FAI, and knowing how to frame and address them could benefit from more cross-pollination from more biology-focused theorists such as Chalmers and Tononi. And somewhat more boldly, a “qualia translation function” would be of use to all FAI projects.
*I share your qualms about the word, but there really are few alternatives with less baggage, unfortunately.
Ah, I see. Yeah, agreed that what we are calling qualia here (not to be confused with its usage elsewhere) underlie a class of practical problems. And what you’re calling a qualia translation function (which is related to what EY called a non-person predicate elsewhere, though finer-grained) is potentially useful for a number of reasons.