Humans can communicate with and productively use many animals (some not extinct*), some of whom even understand concepts like payment and exchange. (Animal psychology has advanced a lot since Adam Smith gave hostage to fortune by saying no one had ever seen a dog or other animal truck, barter, or exchange.) We don’t ‘trade’ them with them. A few are fortunate enough to interest humans in preserving and even propagating them. We don’t ‘trade’ with those either. At the end of the day, no matter how many millions her trainer earns, Lassie just gets a biscuit & ear scritches for being such a good girl. And if she isn’t a good girl, we genetically engineer and manufacture (ie. breed) an ex-wolf who is a good girl.
I’d also highlight the lack of trade with many humans, as well as primates. (Consider the cost of crime and how easily one can create millions of dollars in externalities; consider the ever skyrocketing cost of maintaining research primates, especially the chimpanzees—there is nothing that a chimpanzee can do as a tradeable service which is worth >$20k/year and the costs of dealing with it being able to at any moment decide to rip off your face.)
I would give my dog many treats to stop eating deer poop, since this behavior can lead to expensive veterinary visits. But I can’t communicate with my dog well enough to set up this trade.
Why isn’t this an example of “we would trade with animals if we could communicate better”?
which is a more direct trade between not doing the thing and getting a treat.
Yeah, I’ve done similar trade-things with my cat. We certainly can trade with animals—we just very rarely do. Owning animals is like living in a Stalinist totalitarian communist dictatorship, in that there are sometimes nominally transactions involving ‘rubles’ and ‘markets’, but they represent a tiny fraction of the economy and are considered a last resort (and, animal activists would add, the treatment of animals resembles the less savory parts of such dictatorships as well, in both quality and quantity...).
If you count being literally owned by humans and subject to their every whim, with unowned animals or those that do anything harmful to humans or their other owned animals being routinely shot or poisoned as “trade with animals”, then yes.
(I do think this would still count as a “win” in the scale of possible outcomes from unaligned AGI)
It’s not a view on the nature between dog and owner. It’s a view on the relationship between the two species.
I’m not saying that owners routinely shoot the dogs, but that unowned dogs are routinely killed and that if an owned dog harms a human or other pets or livestock, it is common that other people will kill that dog.
Furthermore dogs have pretty much the best relationship with humans. Almost all of the many thousands of animal species have very much worse outcomes of interaction with humans, a substantial fraction of those including extinction.
We weren’t discussing all dogs extant in the world, which would obviously include dogs that were never pets in the first place, dogs that were never subject to human control, and probably some population of wild dogs that never interacted with humans at all.
You claimed that “Dogs being pets is actually only the norm in a few countries”. I’ve personally been to over 20 countries where this is the norm. And I’m reasonably sure the more well travelled folks on LW have been to more.
So unless there is rock solid proof it really is difficult to believe the claim.
The relevant point being that dogs being treated badly isn’t an “edge case”
The original assertion in question was more specific and is as follows:
If you count being literally owned by humans and subject to their every whim, with unowned animals or those that do anything harmful to humans or their other owned animals being routinely shot or poisoned as “trade with animals”, then yes.
No dog-owner relationship that I’m personally aware, or have heard of, of can be classified as the dog “being subject to their every whim”.
Since it is simply not possible for humans to exercise 100% control over any organism.
And in the case of larger mammals with capacity for independent action and some degree of independent reflection, such as most dogs, even exercising actual control to reflect the owner’s “every whim” over 50% of a 24 hour day is practically impossible.
In fact it would be extremely unusual for this to be the case, hence an ‘edge case’.
I don’t see ‘ability to trade with animals’ as a binary variable. I think our ability to trade with animals could increase further even though it’s not zero.
At the end of the day, no matter how many millions her trainer earns, Lassie just gets a biscuit & ear scritches for being such a good girl. And if she isn’t a good girl, we genetically engineer and manufacture (ie. breed) an ex-wolf who is a good girl.
I don’t think it’s accurate to claim that humans don’t care about their pets’ preferences as individuals and try to satisfy them.
To point out one reason that I think this, there are huge markets for pet welfare. There are even animal psychiatrists and there are longevity companies for pets.
I’ve also known many people who’ve been very distraught when their pets died. Cloning them would be a poor consolation.
I also don’t think that ‘trade’ necessarily captures the right dynamic. I think it’s more like communism in the sense that families are often communist. But I also don’t think that your comment, which sidesteps this important aspect of human-animal relations, is the whole story.
Now, one could argue that the expansion of animal rights and caring about individual animals is a recent phenomenon, and that therefore these are merely dreamtime dynamics, but that requires a theory of dreamtime and why it will end.
I also don’t think that ‘trade’ necessarily captures the right dynamic. I think it’s more like communism in the sense that families are often communist. But I also don’t think that your comment, which sidesteps this important aspect of human-animal relations, is the whole story.
Indeed, ‘trade’ is not the whole story; it is none of the story—my point is that the human-animal relations, by design, sidestep and exclude trade completely from their story.
Now, how good that actual story is for dogs, or more accurately for the AI/human analogy, wolves, one can certainly debate. (I’m sure you’ve seen the cartoons: “NOBLE WOLF: ‘I’ll just steal some food from over by that campfire, what’s the worst that could happen?’ [30,000 years later] [some extremely demeaning and entertaining photograph of spayed/neutered dog from an especially deformed, sickly, short-lived, inbred breed like English bulldogs]”.) But that’s an entirely different discussion from OP’s claim that we humans totally would trade with ants if only we could communicate with them and that’s the only barrier and thus renders it disanalogous to humans and AI.
(Incidentally, cloning a dead pet out of grief represents most of the consumer market for cat/dog cloning. Few do it to try to preserve a unique talent or for breeding purposes. The interviewed people usually say it was a good choice—although I don’t know how many of the people dropping $20k+ on a cloned pet regret the choice, and don’t talk to the media or write about it.)
OK, I get your point now better, thanks for clarifying—and I agree with it.
In our current society, even if dogs could talk, I bet that we wouldn’t allow humans to trade (or at least anywhere close to “free” trade) with them, due to concerns for exploitation.
I agree with the view that trade with AI might not be a meaningful aspect related to dealing with risk or alignment—though I suspect it will be part of the story. I think the story for dogs is that initially the trade struck with humans may well have been a pretty good one. They ended up with a much more competent pack, ate and slept better for it and didn’t really lose any of their freedom or autonomy I suspect. Too long ago in the undocumented history to know but I don’t think today is a good indication of the partnership and cooperative relationship (trade relationship) that was true for much of the time.
I think that older setting is what one needs to consider in terms of any AI-human scenarios.
That isn’t very comforting. To extend the analogy: there was a period when humans were relatively less powerful when they would trade with some other animals such as wolves/dogs. Later, when humans became more powerful that stopped.
It is likely that the powers of AGI will increase relatively quickly, so even if you conclude there is a period when AGI will trade with humans that doesn’t help us that much.
I quoted “And if she isn’t a good girl, we genetically engineer and manufacture (ie. breed) an ex-wolf who is a good girl.”
If genetic engineering a new animal would satisfy human goals, then this would imply that they don’t care about their pet’s preferences as individuals.
No, it wouldn’t imply that, at all. One can very easily care about something’s preference as an individual and work to make a new class of thing which will be more useful than the class of thing that individual belongs to.
Your comment seems like a related aside, which I guess you admitted in a follow-up comment? But anyway, it makes me curious what the axiomatic precepts are for trade. The perception of mutual benefit and a shared ability to communicate this fact?
Also OP doesn’t clearly distinguish between broader forms of quid pro quo and trade, so I’m just sort of adopting the broadest possible definition I can imagine.
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.
Humans can communicate with and productively use many animals (some not extinct*), some of whom even understand concepts like payment and exchange. (Animal psychology has advanced a lot since Adam Smith gave hostage to fortune by saying no one had ever seen a dog or other animal truck, barter, or exchange.) We don’t ‘trade’ them with them. A few are fortunate enough to interest humans in preserving and even propagating them. We don’t ‘trade’ with those either. At the end of the day, no matter how many millions her trainer earns, Lassie just gets a biscuit & ear scritches for being such a good girl. And if she isn’t a good girl, we genetically engineer and manufacture (ie. breed) an ex-wolf who is a good girl.
I’d also highlight the lack of trade with many humans, as well as primates. (Consider the cost of crime and how easily one can create millions of dollars in externalities; consider the ever skyrocketing cost of maintaining research primates, especially the chimpanzees—there is nothing that a chimpanzee can do as a tradeable service which is worth >$20k/year and the costs of dealing with it being able to at any moment decide to rip off your face.)
* yet—growth mindset!
I would give my dog many treats to stop eating deer poop, since this behavior can lead to expensive veterinary visits. But I can’t communicate with my dog well enough to set up this trade.
Why isn’t this an example of “we would trade with animals if we could communicate better”?
The example of “don’t eat that!” communication which comes immediately to mind is https://savethekiwi.nz/about-us/what-we-do/kiwi-avoidance-training-for-dogs/, though that’s with negative rather than with positive reinforcement.
The example of “do this other thing when you get that stimulus” communication which comes immediately to mind is https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/training/stop-dog-barking-doorbell/, which is a more direct trade between not doing the thing and getting a treat.
Yeah, I’ve done similar trade-things with my cat. We certainly can trade with animals—we just very rarely do. Owning animals is like living in a Stalinist totalitarian communist dictatorship, in that there are sometimes nominally transactions involving ‘rubles’ and ‘markets’, but they represent a tiny fraction of the economy and are considered a last resort (and, animal activists would add, the treatment of animals resembles the less savory parts of such dictatorships as well, in both quality and quantity...).
Is not providing treats to your dog already ‘communication’?
Sure, we have some rudimentary forms of dog-human communication. But there’s plenty of room for improvement.
This already counts as ‘trade with animals’ then.
If you count being literally owned by humans and subject to their every whim, with unowned animals or those that do anything harmful to humans or their other owned animals being routinely shot or poisoned as “trade with animals”, then yes.
(I do think this would still count as a “win” in the scale of possible outcomes from unaligned AGI)
Your views on the nature of relationships between dog and owner does not reflect the actual situation in most cases.
It’s not a view on the nature between dog and owner. It’s a view on the relationship between the two species.
I’m not saying that owners routinely shoot the dogs, but that unowned dogs are routinely killed and that if an owned dog harms a human or other pets or livestock, it is common that other people will kill that dog.
Furthermore dogs have pretty much the best relationship with humans. Almost all of the many thousands of animal species have very much worse outcomes of interaction with humans, a substantial fraction of those including extinction.
I’m confused at why this is criticized, since this actually happens?
Elaborating on edge cases as if it was the norm is usually frowned upon in polite online discussions.
Quick Googling suggests that 80% of the dogs in the world are wild dogs living in the streets of villages or agricultural areas.
We weren’t discussing all dogs extant in the world, which would obviously include dogs that were never pets in the first place, dogs that were never subject to human control, and probably some population of wild dogs that never interacted with humans at all.
How do you think a wild dog can live in a village without interacting with humans at all?
Because they might live in the “agricultural areas” as you stated?
It’s not too difficult to imagine as wild dogs don’t universally approach humans whenever they are spotted.
Dogs being pets is actually only the norm in a few countries, and in many countries they are routinely shot, have rocks thrown at them, etc.
Source?
Have heard this first hand from people who travel to countries with large wild dog populations e.g Guatemala
You claimed that “Dogs being pets is actually only the norm in a few countries”. I’ve personally been to over 20 countries where this is the norm. And I’m reasonably sure the more well travelled folks on LW have been to more.
So unless there is rock solid proof it really is difficult to believe the claim.
Sorry, I’ve amended to “some”. The relevant point being that dogs being treated badly isn’t an “edge case”
The original assertion in question was more specific and is as follows:
No dog-owner relationship that I’m personally aware, or have heard of, of can be classified as the dog “being subject to their every whim”.
Since it is simply not possible for humans to exercise 100% control over any organism.
And in the case of larger mammals with capacity for independent action and some degree of independent reflection, such as most dogs, even exercising actual control to reflect the owner’s “every whim” over 50% of a 24 hour day is practically impossible.
In fact it would be extremely unusual for this to be the case, hence an ‘edge case’.
I observed this for myself in rural Madagascar
I don’t see ‘ability to trade with animals’ as a binary variable. I think our ability to trade with animals could increase further even though it’s not zero.
I don’t think it’s accurate to claim that humans don’t care about their pets’ preferences as individuals and try to satisfy them.
To point out one reason that I think this, there are huge markets for pet welfare. There are even animal psychiatrists and there are longevity companies for pets.
I’ve also known many people who’ve been very distraught when their pets died. Cloning them would be a poor consolation.
I also don’t think that ‘trade’ necessarily captures the right dynamic. I think it’s more like communism in the sense that families are often communist. But I also don’t think that your comment, which sidesteps this important aspect of human-animal relations, is the whole story.
Now, one could argue that the expansion of animal rights and caring about individual animals is a recent phenomenon, and that therefore these are merely dreamtime dynamics, but that requires a theory of dreamtime and why it will end.
Indeed, ‘trade’ is not the whole story; it is none of the story—my point is that the human-animal relations, by design, sidestep and exclude trade completely from their story.
Now, how good that actual story is for dogs, or more accurately for the AI/human analogy, wolves, one can certainly debate. (I’m sure you’ve seen the cartoons: “
NOBLE WOLF: ‘I’ll just steal some food from over by that campfire, what’s the worst that could happen?’ [30,000 years later] [some extremely demeaning and entertaining photograph of spayed/neutered dog from an especially deformed, sickly, short-lived, inbred breed like English bulldogs]”.) But that’s an entirely different discussion from OP’s claim that we humans totally would trade with ants if only we could communicate with them and that’s the only barrier and thus renders it disanalogous to humans and AI.(Incidentally, cloning a dead pet out of grief represents most of the consumer market for cat/dog cloning. Few do it to try to preserve a unique talent or for breeding purposes. The interviewed people usually say it was a good choice—although I don’t know how many of the people dropping $20k+ on a cloned pet regret the choice, and don’t talk to the media or write about it.)
OK, I get your point now better, thanks for clarifying—and I agree with it.
In our current society, even if dogs could talk, I bet that we wouldn’t allow humans to trade (or at least anywhere close to “free” trade) with them, due to concerns for exploitation.
I agree with the view that trade with AI might not be a meaningful aspect related to dealing with risk or alignment—though I suspect it will be part of the story. I think the story for dogs is that initially the trade struck with humans may well have been a pretty good one. They ended up with a much more competent pack, ate and slept better for it and didn’t really lose any of their freedom or autonomy I suspect. Too long ago in the undocumented history to know but I don’t think today is a good indication of the partnership and cooperative relationship (trade relationship) that was true for much of the time.
I think that older setting is what one needs to consider in terms of any AI-human scenarios.
That isn’t very comforting. To extend the analogy: there was a period when humans were relatively less powerful when they would trade with some other animals such as wolves/dogs. Later, when humans became more powerful that stopped.
It is likely that the powers of AGI will increase relatively quickly, so even if you conclude there is a period when AGI will trade with humans that doesn’t help us that much.
But he didn’t say that!
I quoted “And if she isn’t a good girl, we genetically engineer and manufacture (ie. breed) an ex-wolf who is a good girl.”
If genetic engineering a new animal would satisfy human goals, then this would imply that they don’t care about their pet’s preferences as individuals.
No, it wouldn’t imply that, at all. One can very easily care about something’s preference as an individual and work to make a new class of thing which will be more useful than the class of thing that individual belongs to.
Your comment seems like a related aside, which I guess you admitted in a follow-up comment? But anyway, it makes me curious what the axiomatic precepts are for trade. The perception of mutual benefit and a shared ability to communicate this fact?
Also OP doesn’t clearly distinguish between broader forms of quid pro quo and trade, so I’m just sort of adopting the broadest possible definition I can imagine.
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.