Now I hear the Life of Brian playing in my head: “Always look on the bright side of life! De-duh, de-duh de-duh de-duh!”
Hume didn’t always take his own rhetoric or ideas too seriously. He said he couldn’t prove that his friends even existed, but when he played billiards with them, these doubts vanished.
Here’s another thought experiment for those convinced by this gloomy view… suppose you find a large red switch marked “Universe: on/off”. Flipping it will cause the immediate painless non-existence of everyone everywhere. Do you flip it? Think how much suffering you’ll save! This suggests an alternative perspective for AI alignment research: we need to bring forward the arrival of the Paperclip Maker, to put us all out of our misery.
Now I hear the Life of Brian playing in my head: “Always look on the bright side of life! De-duh, de-duh de-duh de-duh!”
Hume didn’t always take his own rhetoric or ideas too seriously. He said he couldn’t prove that his friends even existed, but when he played billiards with them, these doubts vanished.
Here’s another thought experiment for those convinced by this gloomy view… suppose you find a large red switch marked “Universe: on/off”. Flipping it will cause the immediate painless non-existence of everyone everywhere. Do you flip it? Think how much suffering you’ll save! This suggests an alternative perspective for AI alignment research: we need to bring forward the arrival of the Paperclip Maker, to put us all out of our misery.