You can also replace, “Because you enjoy looking” with “Because you have to look” for many high-power jobs and positions. Dominance-Submission relationships in business and politics are very important to outcome. I would guess that a lot of bad decisions are made because of the necessity of this dance at high levels… how to crush it out? Not easy. Human nature, it would seem.
Laura B
Karma: 556
Why not, I can’t help myself: Caledonian = Thersites, Eliezer = Agamemnon
Thersites only clamourâd in the throng,
Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue:
Awed by no shame, by no respect controllâd,
In scandal busy, in reproaches bold:
With witty malice studious to defame,
Scorn all his joy, and laughter all his aim:â
But chief he gloried with licentious style
To lash the great, and monarchs to revile.
…
Sharp was his voice; which in the shrillest tone,
Thus with injurious taunts attackâd the throne.
Whateâer our master craves submit we must,
Plagued with his pride, or punishâd for his lust.
Oh women of Achaia; men no more!
Hence let us fly, and let him waste his store
In loves and pleasures on the Phrygian shore.
We may be wanted on some busy day,
When Hector comes: so great Achilles may:
From him he forced the prize we jointly gave,
From him, the fierce, the fearless, and the brave:
And durst he, as he ought, resent that wrong,
This mighty tyrant were no tyrant long.â
…
âPeace, factious monster, born to vex the state,
With wrangling talents formâd for foul debate:
Curb that impetuous tongue, nor rashly vain,
And singly mad, asperse the sovereign reign.
Have we not known thee, slave! of all our host,
The man who acts the least, upbraids the most?
…
Expel the council where our princes meet,
And send thee scourged and howling through the fleet.â
TGGP:
I have great sympathy with this position. An incorrectly formatted AI is one of the biggest fears of the singularity institute, mainly because there are so many more ways to be way wrong than even slightly right about it… It might be that the task of making an actually friendly AI is just too difficult for anyone, and our efforts should be spent in preventing anyone from creating a generally intelligent AI, in the mean time trying to figure out, with our inperfect human brains and the crude tools at our disposal, how to make uploads ourselves or create other physical means of life-extension… No idea. The particulars are out of my area of expertise. I might keep your brain from dying a little longer though… (stroke research)
Just another point as to why important, meglomeniacal types like Eliezer need to have their motives checked:
Frank Vertosick, in his book “When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery,” about a profession I am seriously considering, describes what becomes of nearly all people taking such power over life and death:“He was the master… the ‘ptototypical surgical psychopath’ - someone who could render a patient quadriplegic in the morning, play golf in the afternoon, and spend the evening fretting about that terrible slice off the seventh tee. At the time this seemed terrible, but I soon learned he was no different than any other experierienced neurosurgeon in this regard… I would need to learn not to cry at funerals.”
I had an interesting conversation with a fellow traveler about morality in which he pointed out that ‘upright’ citizens will commit the worst atrocities in the name of a greater good that they think they understand… Maybe some absolute checks are required on actions, especially those of people who might actually have a lot power over the outcome of the future. What becomes of the group lead by the man who simultaneously Achilles and Agamemnon?
Unknown: “But it is quite impossible that the complicated calculation in Eliezer’s brain should be exactly the same as the one in any of us: and so by our standards, Eliezer’s morality is immoral. And this opinion is subjectively objective, i.e. his morality is immoral and would be even if all of us disagreed. So we are all morally obliged to prevent him from inflicting his immoral AI on us”
Well, I would agree with this point if I thought what Eliezer was going to inflict upon us was so out of line with what I want that we would be better off without it. Since, you know, NOT dying doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me, I’m not going to complain, when he’s one of the only people on Earth actually trying to make that happen...
On the other hand, Eliezer, you are going to have to answer to millions if not billions of people protesting your view of morality, especially this facet of it (the not dying thing), so yeah, learn to be diplomatic. You NOT allowed to fuck this up for the rest of us!
Calhedonian: [THIS WOULD GET DELETED]The reason you are unable to make such arguments is that you’re unwilling to do any of the rudimentary tasks necessary to do so. You’ve accomplished nothing but making up names for ill-defined ideas and then acting as though you’d made a breakthrough. On the off-chance that you actually want to contribute something meaningful to the future of humanity, I suggest you take a good, hard look at your other motivations—and the gap between what you’ve actually accomplished and your espoused goals.[/THIS WOULD GET DELETED]
This is NOT that bad a point! Don’t delete that! If we’re considering cognitive biases, then it makes sense to consider the biases of our beloved leader, who might be so clever as to convince all of us to walk directly off of a cliff… Who is the pirate king at the helm of our ship? What are your motivations is a good question indeed- though not one I expect answered in one post or right away.
Also, I found reading this post very satisfying, but that might just be because it’s brain candy confirming my justness in believing what I already believed… It’s good to be skeptical, especially of things that say, ‘You can feel it’s right! And it’s ok that there’s no external validation...’ Tell that to the Nazis who thought Jews were not part of the human species...
Just because I can’t resist, a poem about human failing, the judgment of others we deem weaker than ourselves, and the desire to ‘do better.’ Can we?
“No Second Troy” WB Yeats, 1916 WHY should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? 5 What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? 10 Why, what could she have done being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?
I second Behemouth and Nick- what do we do in the mindspace in which individual’s feelings of right and wrong disagree? What if some people think retarded children absolutely should NOT be pulled off the track? Also, what about the pastrami-sandwich dilemma? (hat of those who would kill 1 million unknown people with no consequence to themselves for a delicious sandwich?
But generally, I loved the post. You should write another post on ‘Adding Up to Normality.’
Oh- back on topic, I think the exploration of metemorality will need to include people who are only softly sociopathic but not ‘brain damaged’. Here is an example: An ex-boy-friend of mine claimed to have an ‘empathy switch,’ by which he had complete and total empathy with the few chosen people he cared about, and complete zero empathy with everyone else. To him, killing millions of people half-way around the world in order to get a super-tasty toasted pastrami and cheese sandwich would be a no-brainer. Kill the mother fuckers! He didn’t know them before, he won’t know them afterwards, what difference does it make? The sandwich on the other hand… well, that will be a fond memory indeed! I think many people actually live by this moral code, but are simply to dishonest with themselves to admit it. What says metemorality to that???
I think Caledonian should stay. Even if he does misrepresent Eliezer, he offers an opportunity to correct misconceptions that others might have regarding what Eliezer was trying to say… And on some rare occasions, he is right...
Oh yay! Do tell! I’m very interested to here your metemoral philosophy… Before you started posting on morality, I thought the topic a general waste of time since people would always be arguing cross-purposes, and in the end it was all just atoms anyway… Your explanation of metemorality helps to explain why all these moral philosophies are in disagreement, yet converge on many of the same conclusions, like ‘killing for its own sake is wrong’ (which people do decide to do- two students from my high school riddled a pizza delivery boy with bullets just to watch him die). I am wondering what universals can be pulled out of this...
When I first started reading the post, I had Keith’s reaction, ‘Get down to the point!’, but I’m now very interested to see where Eliezer is going with this...
Obert: “I rather expect so. I don’t think we’re all entirely past our childhoods. In some ways the human species itself strikes me as being a sort of toddler in the ‘No!’ stage.”
This in a way explains some of my own questions about my behavior… The first and only time I tried cocaine, I was shocked by just how much I loved it (I had thought it would be like smoking a joint and drinking three cups of coffee, fuck was I wrong)… And I thought to myself, “This is way too much fun, I don’t care if you didn’t crash, DON’T do it again.” I think I realize that reactions that beyond my control, really are beyond my control, and thus should not be tampered with in my ‘sophomoric’ state.
TGGP- While JFK’s assassination may or may not (LBJ???) have been good for progressivism, RFK’s was certainly NOT. Nixon won, and then we had drug schedules, and watergate, and all that bullshit...
Here’s a counterfactual to consider: What would the world have been like if Bobby Kennedy had been president instead of Nixon?
Still think it would be a good thing for progressivism if Obama is shot and McCaine becomse prez?
Michael- my main point was that having ways of thinking about the world that are not the world itself are still useful, while trying to only see the world as it is and nothing else is not.
Yes- it’s useful BECAUSE it makes us try to do it, which if we do it, we do it BECAUSE we try to determine it, which we would NOT do if we didn’t consider the world as it could be, but only as it has been and as it will be.
Eliezer: “A lot of philosophy seems to me to suffer from “naive philosophical realism”—the belief that philosophical debates are about things that automatically and directly exist as propertied objects floating out there in the void.”
Well, we do this since we can’t fully apprehend reality as a whole, and so must break it down into more manageable components.
I can tell my husband, “If you had not fed the cat, then I would have fed her,” because I had such an intention from before the cat was fed, and I remember having said intention.
However, can I really ever know what would have happened if my husband had not fed the cat? Maybe the sun would have exploded, because reality is deterministic, and there was nothing else that could have happened, and such a blatent violation of causality would have blown open the fabric of time...
But this is not an at all useful way of thinking about the world. If we submit to fatalism then there isn’t much point in trying to determine anything ourselves, including how to create an fAI and live forever… If we do it, we do it.
Likewise, counterfactuals are important for considering how different variables in our actions shape their outcomes.
“If you had hit me, I would have left you and not come back.” Could be true… could be false… What’s important? Don’t hit her next time!
“If Oswald had not shot Kennedy, then someone else would have.” What’s important? We need to be very careful in protecting the safety of progressive politicians in the future, like Obama, so they don’t go the way of the Kennedy… After all, it happened to Bobby too.
Thoughts on growing up/older/maturing/changing:
Someone once said to me, “But you are far too young to have ever experienced true love. You need your heart broken a good seven to ten times before you can actually appreciate a real lover. Few people under forty know what I’m talking about… maybe in another two or three decades you’ll get the point.”
Interestingly, Keats was only two years older than me when he died. Did Keats love?
Comparing my two current favorite poets, Keats and Yeats is quite interesting. Yeats lived into his 80s and loved many women, Keats his mere 20s and only claims true love with one (his Fanny). Yeats’ early poetry is in many ways similar to Keats’s in its abandon, though not it’s sheer sorrow (Keats was dying), while his middle-aged poetry is much more mature and reflective. Moving onto his later stuff is just horribly depressing… What a beautiful man to become such a bitter old cynic… Age and The Ages will indeed change us… Lets hope we can figure out how to stay young...
Skylar- why not ask Vassar for his collection?
Since you didn’t take down the last one… A modern poet, Don Mclean, Falling Through Time: I can’t answer the questions you ask me, I don’t know what to say. The answers are somewhere lost in the stars when the night has turned to day. But I know if the silence of night could be here, It would drift through my soul and calm all my fear And I could reach out and draw you so near to me
Touch me and warm me and I will lie still. And all that you ask me to give you I will One living moment we’ll have for our own. A brief flash of time that we spent unalone. But you ask me for nothing and give what you can And we’re wrapped in a pillow of sleep once again And my memory drifts through the universe when we are one
Closely we’re falling through time
And the earth will turn in the silence of space, always in motion yet always in place And all things will change yet remain what they are. And far will be near and near will be far And the ages will darken and blend into time And all that is poetry will no longer rhyme But our moment together is forever sublime
For the time has arrived when we must understand That we’re lost in a void on this sad speck of sand And nobody knows where we are, no one cares And the tears that we shed in the dark no one cares And the madmen who plunder this world for their fame Have forgotten that no one remembers their name But time and the universe are always the same
Closely we’re falling through time
(Sorta a poetry dump- but eh- seemed appropriate. Take it down if not so.)
Keats Quotes, 1821: Oh won’t the zombie Keats be surprised to wake up!
“I have but two luxuries to brood over: Your Lovliness, and the hour of my Death.”
″...Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thou express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: … O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
″...But with a sweet forgetting, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time. Ah! would ’twere so with many A gentle girl and boy! But were there ever any Writhed not of passed joy? The feel of not to feel it, When there is none to heal it, Nor numbed sense to steel it, Was never said in ryme.”
″...Though one moment’s pleasure In one moment flies, Though the passion’s treasure In one moment dies; Yet it has not passed- Think how near, how near! And while it doth last, Think how dear, how dear! Hither, hither, hither, Love this boon has sent- If I die and whither I shall die content.”
″...Still so pale? then, dearest, weep- Weep, I’ll count the tears, And each one shall be a bliss For thee in after years Brighter has it left thine eyes Than a sunny rill; And thy whispering melodies Are tenderer still. Yet—as all things mourn awhile At fleeting blisses, E’en let us too! but be our dirge A dirge of kisses.”
″...And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the power Of unreflecting love!--Then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone and think Till love an fame to nothingness do sink.”
I am pleased that you mention that (at present) the human brain is still the best predictor of other humans’ behavior, even if we don’t understand why (yet). I’ve always known my intuitions to be very good predictors of what people will do and feel, though it’s always been a struggle trying to formalize what I already know into some useful model that could be applied by anyone...
However, I was once told my greatest strength in understanding human behavior was not my intuitions, but my ability to evaluate intuitions as one piece of evidence among others, not assuming they are tyrranically correct (which they are certainly not), and thus improving accuracy… Maybe instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater on human intuitions of empathy, we should practice some sort of semi-statistical evaluation of how certain we feel about a conclusion and update it for other factors. Do you do this already, Eliezer? How?