This is a special post for quick takes by Raemon. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
This is an experiment in short-form content on LW2.0. I'll be using the comment section of this post as a repository of short, sometimes-half-baked posts that either:
don't feel ready to be written up as a full post
I think the process of writing them up might make them worse (i.e. longer than they need to be)
I ask people not to create top-level comments here, but feel free to reply to comments like you would a FB post.
I find myself surprised and confused that this conversation ("should we treat AIs as moral patients or agents, and if so what does that mean?") seems so rare. In particular, science fiction seems to have predicted
1) this kind of conversation will be common
2) the ordinary person's perspective will be "yes we should, doing otherwise is akin to saying that aliens or different ethnicities of human aren't people"
Yet in reality we (or at least, I) see very little of that, and much more people staking positions like "AIs are obviously not moral patients or agents, saying otherwise is monstrous and a sign of AI psychosis and disgusting and low-status". Basically, the viewpoint of the villain in most relevant science fiction stories I can recall - the average real life person seems to be Bruce Maddox.
This is an experiment in short-form content on LW2.0. I'll be using the comment section of this post as a repository of short, sometimes-half-baked posts that either:
I ask people not to create top-level comments here, but feel free to reply to comments like you would a FB post.