I’m way more scared about the electrode-produced smiley faces for eternity and the rest. That’s way, way worse than dying.
FWIW, it seems kinda weird to me that such an AI would keep you alive… if you had a “smile-maximiser” AI, wouldn’t it be indifferent to humans being braindead, as long as it’s able to keep them smiling?
I’d like to have Paul Christiano’s view that the “s-risk-risk” is 1⁄100 and that AGI is 30 years off
I think Paul’s view is along the lines of “1% chance of some non-insignificant amount of suffering being intentionally created”, not a 1% chance of this type of scenario.[1]
Could AGI arrive tomorrow in its present state?
I guess. But we’d need to come up with some AI model tomorrow, and this model suddenly becomes agentive and rapidly grows in power, and this model is designed with a utility function that values keeping humans alive but does not value humans flourishing… and even then, there’d likely be better ways to e.g. maximise the number of smiles in the universe, by using artificially created minds.
Eliezer has written a bit about this, but I think he considers it a mostly solved problem.
What can I do as a 30 year old from Portugal with no STEM knowledge? Start learning math and work on alignment from home?
Probably get treatment for the anxiety and try to stop thinking about scenarios that are very unlikely, albeit salient in your mind. (I know, speaking from experience, that it’s hard to do so!)
I did, coincidentally, cold e-mail Paul a while ago to try to get his model on this type of stuff & got the following response:
“I think these scenarios are plausible but not particularly likely. I don’t think that cryonics makes a huge difference to your personal probabilities, but I could imagine it increasing them a tiny bit. If you cared about suffering-maximizing outcomes a thousand times as much as extinction, then I think it would be plausible for considerations along these lines to tip the balance against cryonics (and if you cared a million times more I would expect them to dominate). I think these risks are larger if you are less scope sensitive since the main protection is the small expected fraction of resources controlled by actors who are inclined to make such threats.”
TBH it’s difficult to infer a particular probability estimate for one’s individual probability without cryonics or voluntary uploading here; it’s not completely clear just how bad a scenario would have to be (for a typical biological human) in order to fall within the class of scenarios described as ‘plausible but not particularly likely’.
Yeah, I was guessing that the smiley faces wouldn’t be the best example… I was just wanting to draw something from the Eliezer/Bostrom universe since I had mentioned the paperclipper beforehand. So, maybe a better Eliezer-Bostrom example would be, we ask the AGI to “make us happy”, and it puts everyone paralyzed in hospital beds on dopamine drips. It’s not hard to think that after a couple hours of a good high, this would actually be a hellish existence, since human happiness is way more complex than the amount of dopamine in one’s brain (but of course, Genie in the Lamp, Mida’s Touch, etc)
So, don’t you equate this kind of scenario with a significant amount of suffering? Again, forget the bad example of the smiley faces, and reconsider. (I’ve actually read in a popular lesswrong post about s-risks Paul clearly saying that the risk of s-risk was 1/100th of the risk of x-risk (which makes for even less than 1/100th overall). Isn’t that extremely naive, considering the whole Genie in the Lamp paradigm? How can we be so sure that the Genie will only create hell 1 time for each 100 times it creates extinction?)
a) I agree that a suffering-maximizer is quite unlikely. But you don’t necessarily need one to create s-risks scenarios. You just need a Genie in the Lamp scenario. Like the dopamine drip example, in which the AGI isn’t trying to maximize suffering, quite on contrary, but since it’s super-smart in Sciences but lacks human common sense (a Genie), it ends up doing it.
b) Yes I had read that article before. While it presents some fair solutions, I think it’s far from being mostly solved. “Since hyperexistential catastrophes are narrow special cases (or at least it seems this way and we sure hope so), we can avoid them much more widely than ordinary existential risks.” Note the “at least it seems this way and we surely hope so”. Plus, what’s the odds that the first AGI will be created by someone who listens to what Eliezer has to say? Not that bad actually, if you consider US companies, but if you consider China, then dear God...
On your PS1, yeah definitely not willing to do cryonics, and again, s-risks don’t need to come from threats, just misalignment.
Sorry if I black pilled you with this, maybe there is no point… Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I am.
we ask the AGI to “make us happy”, and it puts everyone paralyzed in hospital beds on dopamine drips. It’s not hard to think that after a couple hours of a good high, this would actually be a hellish existence, since human happiness is way more complex than the amount of dopamine in one’s brain (but of course, Genie in the Lamp, Mida’s Touch, etc)
This sounds much better than extinction to me! Values might be complex, yeah, but if the AI is actually programmed to maximise human happiness then I expect the high wouldn’t wear off. Being turned into a wirehead arguably kills you, but it’s a much better experience than death for the wirehead!
(I’ve actually read in a popular lesswrong post about s-risks Paul clearly saying that the risk of s-risk was 1/100th of the risk of x-risk (which makes for even less than 1/100th overall). Isn’t that extremely naive, considering the whole Genie in the Lamp paradigm? How can we be so sure that the Genie will only create hell 1 time for each 100 times it creates extinction?)
I think the kind of Bostromian scenario you’re imagining is a slightly different line of AI concern than the types that Paul & the soft takeoff crowd are concerned about. The whole genie in the lamp thing, to me at least, doesn’t seem likely to create suffering. If this hypothetical AI values humans being alive & nothing more than that, it might separate your brain in half so that it counts as 2 humans being happy, for example. I think most scenarios where you’ve got a boundless optimiser superintelligence would lead to the creation of new minds that would perfectly satisfy its utility function.
“This sounds much better than extinction to me! Values might be complex, yeah, but if the AI is actually programmed to maximise human happiness then I expect the high wouldn’t wear off. Being turned into a wirehead arguably kills you, but it’s a much better experience than death for the wirehead!”
You keep dodging the point lol… As someone with some experience with drugs, I can tell you that it’s not fun. Human happiness is way subjective and doesn’t depend on a single chemical. For instance, some people love MDMA, others (like me) find it a too intense, too chemical, too fabricated happiness. A forced lifetime on MDMA would be some of the worst tortures I can imagine. It would fry you up. But even a very controlled dopamine drip wouldn’t be good. But anyway, I know you’re probably trolling, so just consider good old-fashioned torture in a dark dungeon instead...
On Paul: yes, he’s wrong, that’s how.
″ I think most scenarios where you’ve got a boundless optimiser superintelligence would lead to the creation of new minds that would perfectly satisfy its utility function.”
True, except that, on that basis alone, you have no idea how that would happen and what would it imply for those new minds (and old ones), since you’re not a digital superintelligence.
FWIW, it seems kinda weird to me that such an AI would keep you alive… if you had a “smile-maximiser” AI, wouldn’t it be indifferent to humans being braindead, as long as it’s able to keep them smiling?
I think Paul’s view is along the lines of “1% chance of some non-insignificant amount of suffering being intentionally created”, not a 1% chance of this type of scenario.[1]
I guess. But we’d need to come up with some AI model tomorrow, and this model suddenly becomes agentive and rapidly grows in power, and this model is designed with a utility function that values keeping humans alive but does not value humans flourishing… and even then, there’d likely be better ways to e.g. maximise the number of smiles in the universe, by using artificially created minds.
Eliezer has written a bit about this, but I think he considers it a mostly solved problem.
Probably get treatment for the anxiety and try to stop thinking about scenarios that are very unlikely, albeit salient in your mind. (I know, speaking from experience, that it’s hard to do so!)
I did, coincidentally, cold e-mail Paul a while ago to try to get his model on this type of stuff & got the following response:
TBH it’s difficult to infer a particular probability estimate for one’s individual probability without cryonics or voluntary uploading here; it’s not completely clear just how bad a scenario would have to be (for a typical biological human) in order to fall within the class of scenarios described as ‘plausible but not particularly likely’.
Thanks for the attentious commentary.
Yeah, I was guessing that the smiley faces wouldn’t be the best example… I was just wanting to draw something from the Eliezer/Bostrom universe since I had mentioned the paperclipper beforehand. So, maybe a better Eliezer-Bostrom example would be, we ask the AGI to “make us happy”, and it puts everyone paralyzed in hospital beds on dopamine drips. It’s not hard to think that after a couple hours of a good high, this would actually be a hellish existence, since human happiness is way more complex than the amount of dopamine in one’s brain (but of course, Genie in the Lamp, Mida’s Touch, etc)
So, don’t you equate this kind of scenario with a significant amount of suffering? Again, forget the bad example of the smiley faces, and reconsider. (I’ve actually read in a popular lesswrong post about s-risks Paul clearly saying that the risk of s-risk was 1/100th of the risk of x-risk (which makes for even less than 1/100th overall). Isn’t that extremely naive, considering the whole Genie in the Lamp paradigm? How can we be so sure that the Genie will only create hell 1 time for each 100 times it creates extinction?)
a) I agree that a suffering-maximizer is quite unlikely. But you don’t necessarily need one to create s-risks scenarios. You just need a Genie in the Lamp scenario. Like the dopamine drip example, in which the AGI isn’t trying to maximize suffering, quite on contrary, but since it’s super-smart in Sciences but lacks human common sense (a Genie), it ends up doing it.
b) Yes I had read that article before. While it presents some fair solutions, I think it’s far from being mostly solved. “Since hyperexistential catastrophes are narrow special cases (or at least it seems this way and we sure hope so), we can avoid them much more widely than ordinary existential risks.” Note the “at least it seems this way and we surely hope so”. Plus, what’s the odds that the first AGI will be created by someone who listens to what Eliezer has to say? Not that bad actually, if you consider US companies, but if you consider China, then dear God...
On your PS1, yeah definitely not willing to do cryonics, and again, s-risks don’t need to come from threats, just misalignment.
Sorry if I black pilled you with this, maybe there is no point… Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I am.
This sounds much better than extinction to me! Values might be complex, yeah, but if the AI is actually programmed to maximise human happiness then I expect the high wouldn’t wear off. Being turned into a wirehead arguably kills you, but it’s a much better experience than death for the wirehead!
I think the kind of Bostromian scenario you’re imagining is a slightly different line of AI concern than the types that Paul & the soft takeoff crowd are concerned about. The whole genie in the lamp thing, to me at least, doesn’t seem likely to create suffering. If this hypothetical AI values humans being alive & nothing more than that, it might separate your brain in half so that it counts as 2 humans being happy, for example. I think most scenarios where you’ve got a boundless optimiser superintelligence would lead to the creation of new minds that would perfectly satisfy its utility function.
“This sounds much better than extinction to me! Values might be complex, yeah, but if the AI is actually programmed to maximise human happiness then I expect the high wouldn’t wear off. Being turned into a wirehead arguably kills you, but it’s a much better experience than death for the wirehead!”
You keep dodging the point lol… As someone with some experience with drugs, I can tell you that it’s not fun. Human happiness is way subjective and doesn’t depend on a single chemical. For instance, some people love MDMA, others (like me) find it a too intense, too chemical, too fabricated happiness. A forced lifetime on MDMA would be some of the worst tortures I can imagine. It would fry you up. But even a very controlled dopamine drip wouldn’t be good. But anyway, I know you’re probably trolling, so just consider good old-fashioned torture in a dark dungeon instead...
On Paul: yes, he’s wrong, that’s how.
″ I think most scenarios where you’ve got a boundless optimiser superintelligence would lead to the creation of new minds that would perfectly satisfy its utility function.”
True, except that, on that basis alone, you have no idea how that would happen and what would it imply for those new minds (and old ones), since you’re not a digital superintelligence.