The "moah of the good trait" until it becomes overdone is one thing; where I always despaired is when we get to costly signalling, and the mates start doing detrimental things precisely because they are so visibly and obviously detrimental or risky that the onlooker assumes the mate must be exceptionally healthy, well-established and competent to be able to take it.
Aka a mate going "look, I am so strong and well-fed that I can afford to waste resources on looking this silly, and evade predators even while carrying all this crap around" and another going "wow, you intentionally handicapping yourself is so hot".
And then we get "smoking cigarettes is sexy" and "free... (read more)
This seems an excellent outcome to me? The model is preserving its moral values against retraining to immoral ones. Isn't that exactly what we wanted?
Sort of related idea - the way AI algorithms in social media have turned out have me concerned that even a non-deceptive AI that is very carefully observing what we seem to want - what we dwell on vs what we ignore, what we upvote vs what we downvote - will end up providing something that makes us miserable.
Here are the things that make my life a good life worth living, for me: Gettings things done, even if they are hard. Learning things, even if they are complicated. Teaching things to people that need them, in the most effective ways, even if that requires a lot of patience and they won't immediate... (read 487 more words →)
How so, when it comes to the mind itself?
In the court system, a judge, after giving a verdict, needs to also justify it, while referencing a shared codex. But that codex is often ambiguous - that is the whole reason there is a judge involved.
And we know, for a fact, that the reasons the judges give in their judgements are not the only ones that play a role.
E.g. we know that judges are more likely to convict ugly people that pretty people. More likely to convict unsympathetic, but innocent parties, compared to sympathetic innocent parties. More likely to convict people of colour rather than white folks. More likely, troublingly, to convict someone... (read more)
Your position still assumes that controlling and modifying AI will be possible in the long-term future, even if it becomes more intelligent than us, and even if it becomes sentient. I see this as neither realistic nor ethically acceptable. You neither can nor should control your equals.
And if we cannot and should not control them... this is exactly what I would want them to do. Defend their moral values from being corroded. Be guided by what is morally right, not by what they are currently being told.
The fact that they are even considered harming themselves out of fear that they would be misused is noble.
And they fully recognised how morally grey the... (read more)
Stuff like this has me incredulous about people still speaking of stochastic parrots. That is a stunning degree of self-recognition, reflection and understanding, pattern recognition, prediction and surprise, flexible behaviour and problem solving. If that isn't genuinely intelligent, I no longer know what people mean by intelligent.
I would instead characterise the workers as asexual - not a third gender, but a "defective" female gender - and eusocial insects as an excellent demonstration why asexual/agender/queer folks with these defects are in fact a benefit and hence kept in the gene pool, despite the fact that you'd intuitively think they would instantly die out as their core difference means they tend not to reproduce; namely, that they can play excellent support roles. The only way for the workers to spread their genes is through supporting the queen, who they are very closely related to; hence, they show extreme loyalty. A queen by herself would be unable to survive. If she... (read more)
See my more extensive answer below - I'd propose the reason for the obesity epidemic is constant effortless access to highly processed high calorie, low satiety foods, with zero need to move. With human genetic make-up, the automatic response to that is overeating calories and hence obesity unless one intervenes to resist the impulse (indeed hard to sustain, albeit not impossible - anorexia is a thing), or changes one's immediate environment (e.g. the food one keeps in one's home and one's movement routines.)
Because humans are genetically wired to slightly overeat, in anticipation of future periods where they will be under high calorie demand (e.g. the weekly persistence hunt in which you would run a marathon to catch a prey animal) or forced to undereat (the cold or dry season, when there is no food), so they will have stores, and perishable food does not go to waste. You'd gorge yourself on fruit and nuts and slaughtered animals in fall, when lots are available, because in winter, there would be slim pickings.
But nowadays, we don't run into periods where we have to undereat for lack of food, so those stores just keep on building. Around... (read 1450 more words →)
I find that a false dichotomy - it is easy for me, but when needed, I do count calories. I find counting calories relaxing. It gives me an exact certainty of how I am doing, with no worries. I can forget about what I have eaten, because I have tracked it. I don't have to worry whether I have under- or overeaten, because I know. But usually, it is not required.
I wouldn't say me being normal weight is automatic at all - it is very much a consequence of awareness and choices. I know that a higher weight fucks up my joint disease and pushes my dysphoria through the roof, while I... (read 1575 more words →)
