I think you’re missing the whole point by handwaving the idea that “animals can understand reward and instruction”—no they can’t, and that’s why we enslave and genetically engineer, not trade.
Lassy would indeed be getting the big bucks were we able to communicate with her directly (and were she a wolf with desires beyond William-syndrome-induced pro-social obedience)
Ultimately this gets back into a “hard” alignment problem, in so far as a system designed to “trade” with humans, i.e. break the communication barrier to understanding our goals and desires or at least be able to sign contracts upholding those… well, it’s 0.0...01 from being aligned
Yes, they can, and quite sophisticatedly too—think examples like vampire bats engaging in long-term reciprocity in food exchanges, while paying attention to who welshes on requests and how much food they have to spare to barf up.
were she a wolf with desires beyond William-syndrome-induced pro-social obedience
But she’s not. That’s literally the point of breeding wolves into dogs. (And when we can’t breed them, we tend to find something we can. Ask the Syrian wild ass how their uncooperativeness worked out for them once we found a better riding-animal substitute in the form of horses—oh, that’s right, you can’t, because we drove them frigging extinct.)
Yes, they can, and quite sophisticatedly too—think examples like vampire bats engaging in long-term reciprocity in food exchanges, while paying attention to who welshes on requests and how much food they have to spare to barf up.
I mean between species, it seems reasonable to assume both we and the bat can’t understand each other’s values, even if we can understand those of our own species.
I think you’re missing the whole point by handwaving the idea that “animals can understand reward and instruction”—no they can’t, and that’s why we enslave and genetically engineer, not trade.
Lassy would indeed be getting the big bucks were we able to communicate with her directly (and were she a wolf with desires beyond William-syndrome-induced pro-social obedience)
Ultimately this gets back into a “hard” alignment problem, in so far as a system designed to “trade” with humans, i.e. break the communication barrier to understanding our goals and desires or at least be able to sign contracts upholding those… well, it’s 0.0...01 from being aligned
Yes, they can, and quite sophisticatedly too—think examples like vampire bats engaging in long-term reciprocity in food exchanges, while paying attention to who welshes on requests and how much food they have to spare to barf up.
But she’s not. That’s literally the point of breeding wolves into dogs. (And when we can’t breed them, we tend to find something we can. Ask the Syrian wild ass how their uncooperativeness worked out for them once we found a better riding-animal substitute in the form of horses—oh, that’s right, you can’t, because we drove them frigging extinct.)
I mean between species, it seems reasonable to assume both we and the bat can’t understand each other’s values, even if we can understand those of our own species.