Narcissists and psychopaths cannot align with anything, … Aligning LLMs with that as an example before us is dangerous. It is probably the danger.
Bear in mind that roughly 2%–4% of the population have narcissism/psychopathy/anti-social personality disorder, and only the lower-functioning psychopaths have a high chance of being in jail. So probably a few percent of the Internet was written by narcissists and psychopaths who were (generally) busy trying to conceal their nature from the rest of us. I’m very concerned what will happen once we train an LLM with a high enough capacity that it’s more able to perceive this than most of us neurotypical humans are.
However, while I agree they’re particularly dangerous, I don’t think the rest of us are harmless. Look at how we treat other primates, farm animals, or our house pets (almost all of whom are neutered, or bred for traits we find appealing). Both Evolutionary Psychology and the history of human autocrats makes it pretty clear what behavior to expect from a normal-human-like mentality that is vastly more powerful than other humans. The difference is, compared to abstract unknown AI agents where we’re concerned about the possibility of behavior like deceit or power-seeking, we know damn well that your average, neurotypical, law-abiding human tends to be a little less law abiding if they’re damn sure they won’t get caught, most aren’t always scrupulously honest if they know they’ll never get caught, and tends to look out for themselves and their friends and family before other people.
Bear in mind that roughly 2%–4% of the population have narcissism/psychopathy/anti-social personality disorder, and only the lower-functioning psychopaths have a high chance of being in jail. So probably a few percent of the Internet was written by narcissists and psychopaths who were (generally) busy trying to conceal their nature from the rest of us. I’m very concerned what will happen once we train an LLM with a high enough capacity that it’s more able to perceive this than most of us neurotypical humans are.
However, while I agree they’re particularly dangerous, I don’t think the rest of us are harmless. Look at how we treat other primates, farm animals, or our house pets (almost all of whom are neutered, or bred for traits we find appealing). Both Evolutionary Psychology and the history of human autocrats makes it pretty clear what behavior to expect from a normal-human-like mentality that is vastly more powerful than other humans. The difference is, compared to abstract unknown AI agents where we’re concerned about the possibility of behavior like deceit or power-seeking, we know damn well that your average, neurotypical, law-abiding human tends to be a little less law abiding if they’re damn sure they won’t get caught, most aren’t always scrupulously honest if they know they’ll never get caught, and tends to look out for themselves and their friends and family before other people.