“There’s another interpretation of this, which I think might be better where you can model people like AI_WAIFU as modeling timelines where we don’t win with literally zero value. That there is zero value whatsoever in timelines where we don’t win. AndEliezer, or people like me, are saying, ‘Actually, we should value them in proportion to how close to winning we got’. Because that is more healthy… It’s reward shaping! We should give ourselves partial reward for getting partially the way. He says that in the post, how we should give ourselves dignity points in proportion to how close we get.
And this is, in my opinion, a much psychologically healthier way to actually deal with the problem. This is how I reason about the problem. I expect to die. I expect this not to work out. But hell, I’m going to give it a good shot and I’m going to have a great time along the way. I’m going to spend time with great people. I’m going to spend time with my friends. We’re going to work on some really great problems. And if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. But hell, we’re going to die with some dignity. We’re going to go down swinging.”
I’m not entirely sure on the metaphysics here, but an additional possible point is that in Many Worlds or similar big universes, there is some literal payoff of “us trying hard and getting pretty close in one universe means there are more nearby universes that succeeded.”
I like this comment, and I personally think the framing you suggest is useful. I’d like to point out that, funnily enough, in the rest of the conversation ( not in the quotes unfortunately) he says something about the dying with dignity heuristic being useful because humans are (generally) not able to reason about quantum timelines.
I’m not entirely sure on the metaphysics here, but an additional possible point is that in Many Worlds or similar big universes, there is some literal payoff of “us trying hard and getting pretty close in one universe means there are more nearby universes that succeeded.”
Is there a way we could get sure on the metaphysics here? It feels like it’s an important thing to know if it actually happens to be true.
I like this comment, and I personally think the framing you suggest is useful. I’d like to point out that, funnily enough, in the rest of the conversation ( not in the quotes unfortunately) he says something about the dying with dignity heuristic being useful because humans are (generally) not able to reason about quantum timelines.