The OP talks about the fact that evolution produced lots of organisms on Earth, of which humans are just one example, and that if we view the set of all life, arguably more of it consists of bacteria or trees than humans. Then this comment thread has been about the question: so what? Why bring that up? Who cares?
Like, here’s where I think we’re at in the discussion:
Nate or Eliezer: “Evolution made humans, and humans don’t care about inclusive genetic fitness.”
tailcalled: “Ah, but did you know that evolution also made bacteria and trees?”
Nate or Eliezer: “…Huh? What does that have to do with anything?”
If you think that the existence on Earth of lots of bacteria and trees is a point that specifically undermines something that Nate or Eliezer said, then can you explain the details?
I wouldn’t go this far yet. E.g. I’ve been playing with the idea that the weighting where humans “win” evolution is something like adversarial robustness. This just wasn’t really a convincing enough weighting to be included in the OP. But if something like that turns out correct then one could imagine that e.g. humans get outcompeted by something that’s even more adversarially robust. Which is basically the standard alignment problem.
Like I did not in fact interject in response to Nate or Eliezer. Someone asked me what triggered my line of thought, and I explained that it came from their argument, but I also said that my point was currently too incomplete.
The OP talks about the fact that evolution produced lots of organisms on Earth, of which humans are just one example, and that if we view the set of all life, arguably more of it consists of bacteria or trees than humans. Then this comment thread has been about the question: so what? Why bring that up? Who cares?
Like, here’s where I think we’re at in the discussion:
Nate or Eliezer: “Evolution made humans, and humans don’t care about inclusive genetic fitness.”
tailcalled: “Ah, but did you know that evolution also made bacteria and trees?”
Nate or Eliezer: “…Huh? What does that have to do with anything?”
If you think that the existence on Earth of lots of bacteria and trees is a point that specifically undermines something that Nate or Eliezer said, then can you explain the details?
Oh, I was responding to something different, my apologies.
I wouldn’t go this far yet. E.g. I’ve been playing with the idea that the weighting where humans “win” evolution is something like adversarial robustness. This just wasn’t really a convincing enough weighting to be included in the OP. But if something like that turns out correct then one could imagine that e.g. humans get outcompeted by something that’s even more adversarially robust. Which is basically the standard alignment problem.
Like I did not in fact interject in response to Nate or Eliezer. Someone asked me what triggered my line of thought, and I explained that it came from their argument, but I also said that my point was currently too incomplete.