Bizarre Bundle?
Xerographica
Karma: −417
In the comment that you replied to, I calmly and rationally explained with exceptionally sound logic why my “pet issue” (the efficient allocation of resources) is relevant to the subject of “unfriendly” AI.
Did you calmly and rationally explain why the efficient allocation of resources is not relevant to “unfriendly” AI? Nope.
Nobody on this forum is forced to read or respond to my comments. And obviously I’m not daunted by criticism. So unlike this guy, I’m not going to bravely run away from an abundance of economic ignorance.
And if my calm and rational comments are driving you so crazy… then perhaps it would behoove you to find the bias in your bonnet.
Not sure how you missed it… but I speak about how people should be able to choose where their taxes go. Maybe you missed it because I get swamped with downvotes?
Right now the government engages in activities that some people consider to be immoral. For example, pacifists consider war to be immoral. You think that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with pacifists being forced to fund war. Instead of worrying about how pacifists currently have to give war a leg to stand on… you want to worry about how we’re going to prevent robots from being immoral.
When evilness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder… it’s just as futile to try and prevent AIs from being immoral as it is to try and prevent humans from being immoral. What isn’t futile however is to fight for people’s freedom not to invest in immorality.
Any case you worry about is a case where an AI that you consider to be immoral ends up with too many resources at its disposal. Because you’re really not going to worry about...
… a moral AI with significant resources at its disposal
… an immoral AI with insignificant resources at its disposal
So you worry about a case where an immoral AI ends up with too many resources at its disposal. But that’s exactly the same thing that I worry about with humans. And if it’s exactly the same thing that I worry about with humans… then it’s a given that my worry is the same regardless of whether the immoral individual is human, AI, alien or other.
In other words, you have this bizarre double standard for humans and AI. You want to prevent immoral AIs from coming into existence yet you think nothing of forcing humans to give immoral humans a leg to stand on.
Can you suggest a scenario in which futarchy would fail to prevent the universe from being turned into paperclips?
This is kinda like how futarchy works… STAR WARS or STAR TREK… we let the swarm decide! The difference is that the outcome would be a lot more accurate with futarchy. Why? Because people would be putting their money where their mouths are.
As I pointed out here… AI Safety vs Human Safety… nobody, that I know of, has applied the best method we have for controlling humans (the market) to robots. Which isn’t too surprising since AI largely falls under the scope of computer science. But it’s the “safety” aspect that also falls under the scope of economics. The development of an evil AI is most definitely an inefficient allocation of society’s limited resources.
With futarchy we could bet on which organization/company is most likely to develop harmful AI. We could also bet on which organization is most likely to develop beneficial AI. Then we could shift our money from the former to the latter.
Right now I have −126 Karma!!! w00t! And… screw all you all! Except for that one guy who likes orchids. He’s cool.
Feel tempted to downvote this? Might want to think twice because… Data Mining Reveals How The “Down-Vote” Leads To A Vicious Circle Of Negative Feedback.
Therefore, you’re irrational if you downvote this. Maybe it’s because you’ve been mind-killed by politics?
Is economics also a mind killer? Perhaps that would explain what happened to me. Because I’m all about the economics… Let a thousand markets bloom.
No data, like I said...
What percentage of the total decline in page views does this explanation actually account for? Beats me. It has to account for some though.
I did find this...
The number of active editors on the English-language Wikipedia peaked in 2007 at more than 51,000 and has been declining ever since as the supply of new ones got choked off. This past summer only 31,000 people could be considered active editors. - The Decline of Wikipedia
That confirms a decline in editors… and by extension… a decline in edits/pageviews… but no idea what fraction of the total pageviews decline it represents. It’s probably pretty small.
The Google explanation probably represents a much higher fraction. For a while Wikipedia seemed to frequently be at the top of numerous search results. This would of course equate to considerable pageviews. Now it seems like Wikipedia results aren’t as frequently as high as they used to be.
I definitely agree with Scott’s argument. Using extreme scenarios can help get to the heart of the matter/morality. It’s especially interesting because Scott’s previous post was… Is Everything A Religion? If everything is truly a religion then Phil Robertson’s scenario loses steam. The atheist would simply reply to the intruders that he does believe in God… just not the Christian God. If the intruders pressed the atheist for details… and the atheist was a liberal… then he could tell him that the state is his God. This would be consistent with a paper written by a Nobel prize winning economist…
The state did, indeed, become God. - James M. Buchanan, Afraid to be free: Dependency as desideratum
It’s too bad that Scott didn’t share that paper as an additional example of how different beliefs can be considered religions.
But the atheist wouldn’t necessarily have to be a liberal to have some degree of faith that the state would track down, apprehend and judge the law-breakers.
Personally, even though I’m an atheist, it’s entirely possible that I would totally claim Christianity and quote the heck out of the Bible if I found myself in Robertson’s scenario. I would have absolutely no affinity with Kant in this regard. I would lie like a rug if I thought it would save my family. That being said, if we assumed that the intruders were highly intelligent, and/or had a lie detector test on them… then I would tell them that my “God” is progress. Difference is the engine of progress so difference is the engine of “God”. If the intruders killed my family and I… then this would decrease difference… and as such, be against my religion. And because everybody benefits from progress… even the intruders.. then it would behoove them not to kill us. In essence I would be making a consequentialist argument against being murdered.
The same thing is true if the leader of China called me on the phone and threatened to invade the US and kill/enslave all Americans. Again, assuming adequate intelligence… I’d make a consequential rather than a deontological argument against the invasion. Sure, China would gain X from having a bunch of additional resources at their disposal… but they would be foregoing Y. What’s Y? Y is what they would have gained from American innovations. Progress (innovations, discoveries, cures) depends on difference… and China would eliminate a lot of difference by invading us. Therefore… Y > X.
Perhaps it would be more effective to simply reply that we’d bomb the heck out of China if they invaded us? History clearly indicates that this argument doesn’t work in the long run. We’re all safer and better off when more, rather than less, people appreciate the value of difference.
But you can sort comments by newest/oldest/best! Plus, you’re automatically subscribed to anything that you comment on. So any future replies are e-mailed to you. And you’re given a central page to find and reference any of your comments… Xerographica. And you can use HTML.
This is my preference breakdown for SSC’s comments...
LessWrong > Disqus > Current
I really like the idea of blogs “outsourcing” their comments to forums. A second best option would be for Scott to use Disqus for his comments. With Disqus you’re always logged in. Plus you can rate comments up or down.
The decline happened as a result of my indefinite banishment from Wikipedia. How many page views did I generate when I was active on Wikipedia? A lot more than I generate now that I’m banned!
I’m kinda kidding around but there’s more than a kernel of truth in there. When Wikipedia was first created… there were more than a gazillion bits of knowledge missing. Over time though… the “easiest” bits were filled in. As all the lowest hanging fruit was picked… there were less and less people tall enough to reach the higher fruit. Clearly this resulted in a significant decrease in editing activity and by extension… a decrease in page views.
What percentage of the total decline in page views does this explanation actually account for? Beats me. It has to account for some though.
On a tangentially related note… a few weeks after famous economists die… I like to try and grab a screenshot of the page views for their Wikipedia entries. Their page views have a huge spike as their life/death is widely discussed… but then the page views decline pretty quickly afterwards. Unfortunately, in too many cases I’ve forgotten to grab screenshots. And the graph doesn’t look as good when you have to go back in time. :( Why economists? Well… I think they’d appreciate it more than most famous dead people. Plus, it could be interesting/informative to compare their graphs in order to try and discern some useful information about something… economical.
In exchange for my explanation… how about you try and resolve Satt’s Paradox? Or, you can try and predict if/when/how quarters up are going to replace thumbs up.
If by “overriding differences” you mean “cause the complete extinction of anything that could ever be called human, for ever and ever”.
Overriding differences is a continuum that ranges from very small overrides to very large overrides. But in all cases it boils down to an individual preferring option A but being forced to choose option Not A instead.
And no, I don’t think it’s ok for humans to “cause the complete extinction of anything that could ever be called human, for ever and ever”, either.
Great, we can cross this extremely large override from the list. How about we consider an override that actually does occur? With our current system… pacifists are forced to pay for war. This overrides their difference. Pacifists would prefer to choose option A (peace) but they are forced instead to choose option Not A (war). Do you support this overriding of difference? If so, then where do you draw the line and why do you draw it there?
If it helps, try and imagine that I’m an AI. Heck, for all you know I might be! If I am, then your first reply really didn’t convince me not to override your difference. But, I’m willing to give you a second chance. If you have no problem forcing a pacifist to pay for war… then why should you have a problem if I force you to attach orchids to trees?
I decree that, from this day forward, every discussion has to be about my obsession with taxes. Not really. In case you didn’t get the memo… nobody here is forced to reply to my comments. That I know of. If you were forced to reply to my comments… then please let me know who overrode your difference. I will surely give them a stern and strongly worded lecture on the value of difference.
Of course SA’s concern is that AIs would override difference. Overriding difference means less freedom. If SA wasn’t concerned with AIs turning us humans into puppets… then he wouldn’t be obsessed with AI safety.
My question is… if he’s concerned with having our difference overridden… then why isn’t he concerned with our current system? It’s a perfectly legitimate and relevant question. Why is he ignoring the clear and present danger and focusing instead on an unclear and future danger?
The current system overrides difference. We elect a small group of humans to spend the taxes earned by a large group of humans. Your concern is that AIs would override difference. But, where’s your concern for our current system? Why is it ok for humans to override difference but not ok for AIs to override difference? Either you have a double standard… or you don’t realize that you support a system that overrides difference.
Would it be helpful if I could turn you into my puppet? Maybe? I sure could use a hand with my plan. Except, my plan is promoting the value of difference. And why am I interested in promoting difference? Because difference is the engine of progress. If I turned you into my puppet… then I would be overriding your difference. And if I turned a million people into my puppets… then I would be overriding a lot of difference.
There have been way too many humans throughout history who have thought nothing of overriding difference. Anybody who supports our current system thinks nothing of overriding difference. If AIs think nothing of overriding human difference then they can join the club. It’s a big club. Nearly every human is a member.
If you would have a problem with AIs overriding human difference… then you might want to first take the “beam” out of your own eye.
Israeli citizens can’t choose where their taxes go. This leads to rational ignorance.
Given enough eyeballs, all Easter Eggs are exposed (Linus’s Law). A correct explanation is like an Easter Egg. What prevents Easter Eggs from being found for a long time? You have too few kids looking for them.
The Israeli government did not and still does not allow its citizens to shop in the public sector. This means that there are very few eyes on the lookout for Easter Eggs. It stands to reason that Israel would increase its chances of finding Easter Eggs by allowing all its citizens to shop for themselves in the public sector. But there are Jews all over the world. So Israel should allow everybody and anybody to shop in its public sector.
Humans have all sorts of conflicting interests. In a recent blog entry… Scott Alexander vs Adam Smith et al… I analyzed the topic of anti-gay laws.
If all of an AI’s clones agree with it… then the AI might want to do some more research on biodiversity. Creating a bunch of puppets really doesn’t help increase your chances of success.
The mature orchids on the tree had been growing there for several years. I transplanted them there… none of them were grown from seed. I’m guessing that they already had the fungus in their roots. The fungus had plenty of time to spread… but it doesn’t seem able to venture very far away from the comfort of the orchid roots that it resides in. The bark is very hot, sunny and dry during the day. Not the kind of conditions suitable for most fungus.
I sowed more seeds in subsequent years… but haven’t spotted any new protocorms. Not sure why this is. The winter before I sowed the seeds was particularly wet for Southern California. This might have led to a fungal feeding frenzy? Also, that was the only year that I had sowed Laelia anceps seeds. Laelia anceps is pretty tolerant of drier/hotter conditions.
I took a look at the article that you shared. A lot of the science was over my head… but isn’t it interesting that they didn’t discuss the fact that an orchid seed pod can contain a million seeds? The orchid seed pod can contain so many seeds because the seeds are so small. And the seeds are so small because they don’t contain any nutrients. And the reason that the orchid seed doesn’t have any nutrients… is because it relies on its fungal partner to provide it with the nutrients it needs to germinate. So I’m guessing that the rate of radiation increased whenever this unusual association developed.
Evidently it’s a pretty good strategy to outsource the provision of nutrients to a fungal partner. In economics, this is known as a division of labor. A division of labor helps to increase productivity.
I find it fascinating when economics and biology combine.… What Do Coywolves, Mr. Nobody, Plants And Fungi All Have In Common? and Cross Fertilization—Economics and Biology.
When somebody downvotes my post… they downvote all four of those topics. But it’s impossible that they dislike each of those four topics equally. And that’s the problem with bundles. Bundles can hinder accurate communication.