Review
Review
The Other Existential Crisis
7Seth Herd
3James Stephen Brown
3Dave92F1
3Seth Herd
1James Stephen Brown
4andrewtaneglen
7Seth Herd
4TAG
3James Stephen Brown
5Seth Herd
1andrewtaneglen
3James Stephen Brown
2Seth Herd
2TAG
1James Stephen Brown
3Dave92F1
1James Stephen Brown
-1Canaletto
1andrewtaneglen
1James Stephen Brown
1James Stephen Brown
4andrewtaneglen
3Gordon Seidoh Worley
3James Stephen Brown
New Comment
Most of humanity has always known they couldn't do anything useful - except provide a better life for their children than they had.
Only a few elites have ever felt that what they do mattered, and looked forward to doing it as a challenge. Most of humanity has done what they must to ensure their children won't suffer.
Your first answer to your daughter would make most parents weep with joy: whatever you want is what you'll do.
Don't worry that she won't find something she likes to to do unless she's forced to. People care about people, and there will be plenty to do with and for other people.
If you want concrete ideas of what people do when they're allowed to, see art and other collaborative projects that aren't just for money.
Thanks Seth, I really appreciate what you've said here—it's good to be reminded that it's not necessary to have your kids change the world, and that caring for each other and expressing themselves contributes positively to the whole.
I'm less worried actually about paths my daughter might take, she's very bright and creative and I'm sure she'll do fine, I guess I don't want her to shy away from things just because someone or something else can do it better. I was mainly posting because I felt like that feeling of nausea might be affecting others who keep abreast of these things, and that the coincidence of reading the book right now might have helped me name something others might be experiencing.
But, again, I appreciate your thoughtful insights.
Most of us do useful things. Most of us do it because we need to, to earn a living. Other people give us money because they trade with us so we'll do things that are useful to them (like providing goods or services or helping others to do so).
I think it's a profound mistake to think that earning money (honestly) doesn't do anything useful. On the contrary, it's what makes the world go.
Sure, but I wasn't saying what we do is pointless - just that there are other routes to meaning that aren't really more difficult. And that what most of the world does now is back breaking and soul crushing labor, not the fun intellectual labor the LW community often is privileged to do.
Fair point. From the perspective of one who sees significant value in earning a living and providing goods and services, how are you feeling about the prospects of many marketable skills being mastered by AI? Do we need to reevaluate the value of jobs?
By pointing to a situation where people already don't feel they are contributing much, it seems like Seth is saying that we're not losing much through this rise of AI. But your objection suggests to me you might think that we are losing something significant?
I think it's important to first accept the deterministic nature of the self (of one's self?), in the sense that we are an object determined by the interaction of atoms, and through our wetware is created the subject/our subjectivity. In the absence of AI we can already pass through this phase of realisation/acceptance (the nausea of the realisation of being an object).
To the question; so what do I do now?, we have the answer that our lives and behaviour, while in a sense deterministic, are also 'inevitable', in the important sense that regardless of any realisation, I will still go on living, responding to my 'subjective' urges/needs, will continue identify and attempt to carry out 'authentic' human behaviours and experiences. Nothing changes.
Our subjectivity is inevitable - and insofar as it is a creation of our wetware, our 'fabricated subjectivity' is true/authentic subjectivity - in a materialist world, can there be any other way for subjectivity?
So will be the case with super-advanced AI - we will still be human, our human behaviour/wants and needs will remain inevitable - we will still live human lives. We may be imprisoned, we may be freed of practical concerns, just like many of us are right now.
This feels like the intersection of Analytic and Continental Philosopy, the former being rigorous science-like analysis detached from subjectivity, the later being more closely concerned with the human experience.
While we're determined, we also determine the future. The atoms that do that are called you. They make up beliefs and passions and you. You are not an object. You are a subject, and you determine your own future. The nexus of past influences is called you and your thoughts. Don't skimp on care in thinking; your future is up to you.
You are a subject, and you determine your own future
Not so much , given deteminism.
Determinism allows you to cause the future in a limited sense. Under determinism, events still need to be caused,and your (determined) actions can be part of the cause of a future state that is itself determined, that has probability 1.0. Determinism allows you to cause the future ,but it doesn't allow you to control the future in any sense other than causing it. (and the sense in which you are causing the future is just the sense in which any future state depends on causes in he past -- it is nothing special and nothing different from physical causation). It allows, in a purely theoretical sense "if I had made choice b instead of choice a, then future B would have happened instead of future A" ... but without the ability to have actually chosen b. You are a link in a deterministic chain that leads to a future state, so without you, the state will not happen ... not that you have any choose use in the matter. You can't stop or change the future because you can't fail to make your choices, or make them differently. You can't anything of your own, since everything about you and your choices was determined by at the time of the Big Bang. Under determinism , you are nothing special...only the BB is special.
Tthis is still true under many worlds. even though MWI implies that there is not a single inevitable future, it doesn't allow you to influence the future in a way that makes future A more likely than future B , as a result of some choice you make now. Under MW determinism, the probabilities of A and B are what they are, and always were -- before you make a decision, after you make a decision , and before you were born. You can't choosee between them, even in the sense of adjusting the probabilities.
Libertarian free will, by contrast, does allow the future to depend on decisions which are not themselves determined. That means there are valid statements of the form "if I had made choice b instead of choice a, then future B would have happened instead of future A". And you actually could have made choice a or choice b....these are real possibilities, not merely conceptual or logical ones.
I think Seth is not so much contradicting you here but using a deterministic definition of "self" as that which we are referring to as a particular categorisation of the deterministic process, the one experienced as "making decisions", and importantly "deliberating over decisions". Whether we are determined or not, the effort one puts into their choices is not wasted, it is data-processing that produces better outcomes in general.
One might be determined to throw in the towel on cognitive effort if they were to take a particular interpretation of determinism, and they, and the rest of us, would be worse off for it. So, the more of us who expend the effort to convince others of the benefits of continuing cognitive effort in spite of a deterministic universe are doing a service to the future, determined or otherwise.
Cognitive effort is inevitable. It would take a special kind of 'person who fails the psychopath test', somehow lacking urges/feelings, to be able to switch off completely and fade into nothingness.
What I'm meaning to say is that if you naively believe that "you" (as in someone's sense of self—a result of their genes, experiences and reflections) have no control over yourself, you might feel a lot more relaxed about past mistakes, or future ones since you have a ready excuse, resulting in lazy decision-making (decision-making involving less effort), of course you'll probably still satisfy the bare necessities for survival—although some of the early existentialists sound like they would barely bother with this.
Of course those same existentialists did write long, ground-breaking books that no doubt required significant cognitive effort, so "shrugs".
Libertarian free will is a contradiction in terms. Randomness is not what we want. Compatibilist free will has all the properties worth wanting: your values and beliefs determine the future, to the extent you exert the effort to make good decisions. Whether you do that is also determined, but it is determined by meaningful things like how you react to this statement.
Determinism has no actionable consequences if it's true. The main conclusion people draw, my efforts at making decisions don't matter, is dreadfully wrong.
One might be determined to throw in the towel on cognitive effort if they were to take a particular interpretation of determinism, and they, and the rest of us, would be worse off for it.
Determinists are always telling each other to act like libertarians. That's a clue that libertarianism is worth wanting. @James Stephen Brown
Compatibilist free will has all the properties worth wanting: your values and beliefs determine the future, to the extent you exert the effort to make good decisions.
No it doesn't, because it doesn't have the property of being able to shape the future, or steer towards a future that wasn't inevitable. Which is pretty important if you are trying to avoid the AI kills everyone future
Libertarian free will is able to do that.
Naturalistic libertarianism appeals to some form of indeterminism, or randomness, inherent in physics rather than a soul or ghost-in-the-machine unique to humans, , that overrides the physical behaviour of the brain. The problem is to explain how indeterminism does not undermine other features of a kind free will "worth wanting" -- purposiveness, rationality and so on.
Randomness is not what we want
Explaining NLFW in terms of "randomness" is difficult, because the word has connotations of purposelessness , meaninglessness, and so on. But these are only connotations, not strict implications. "Not deteminism" doesn't imply lack of reason , purpose , or control. It doesn't have to separate your from from your beliefs and values. Therefore,I prefer the term "indeterminism" over the term "randomness".
So, how to explain indeterminism does not undermine other features of a kind free will "worth wanting".
Part of the answer is to note that mixtures of indeterminism and determinism are possible, so that libertarian free will is not just pure randomness, where any action is equally likely.
Another part is proposing a mechanism , with indeterminism occurring at different places and times, rather than being slathered evenly over neural activity.
Another part is noting that control doesn't have to mean predetermination.
Another part is that notice that a choice between things you wish to do cannot leave you doing something you do not wish to do, something unconnected to your desires and beliefs.
The basic mechanism is that the unconscious mind proposes various ideas and actions , which a the conscious mind decides between. Thus is similar to the mechanism provided by the determinist Sam Harris. He makes much of the fact that the conscious mind, the executive function, does not predetermined the suggestions: I argue that the choice between them, the decision to act in one rather than another, *is* conscious control. -- and conscious control clearly exists in health adults.
Part of the answer is to note that mixtures of indeterminism and determinism are possible, so that libertarian free will is not just pure randomness, where any action is equally likely.
This is really interesting, because I agree with this, but also agree with what Seth's saying. I think this disagreement might actually be largely a semantic one. As such, I'm going to (try to) avoid using the terms 'libertarian' or 'compatibilist' free will. First of all I agree with the use of "indeterminism" to mean non-uniform randomness. I agree that there is a way that determinism and indeterminism can be mixed in such a way as give rise to an emergent property that is not present in either purely determined or purely random systems. I understand this in relation to the idea of evolutionary "design" which emerges from a system that necessarily has both determined and indeterminate properties (indeterminate at least at the level of the genes, they might not be ultimately indeterminate).
I'm going to employ a decision-making map that seeks to clarify my understanding of the how we make decisions and where we might get "what we want" from.
As I see it, the items in white are largely set, and change only gradually, and with no sense of control involved. I don't believe we have any control over our genes, our intentions or desires, what results our actions will have, of the world—I also don't think we have any control over our model of ourselves or the world, those are formed subconsciously. But our effort (in the green areas) allows for deliberative decision making, following an evolutionary selection process, in which our conscious awareness is involved.
In this way we are not beholden to the first action available to us, we can, instead of taking an action in the world, make a series of simulated actions in our head, consciously experiencing the predicted outcome of those actions, until we find a satisfactory one. So, you don't end up with a determined or a random solution, you end up with an option based on your conscious experience of your simulated options. This process satisfies my wants in terms of my sense that I have some control (when I make the effort) over my decisions. At the same time, I'm agnostic about whether true indeterminism exists at all, but, like with evolution, with randomness at the level of the cell (that may not be ultimately random), I think even in an entirely determined universe, we exist on a level that is subject to, at least, some apparent indeterminism. And even if that apparent indeterminism turns out to be determined, our (eternal) inability to calculate what is determined, still means we have no grounds to act in any way other than as if we have the control we feel we have.
I'm actually not sure if this makes me a compatibilist or not.
Determinists are always telling each other to act like libertarians. That's a clue that libertarianism is worth wanting.
So, I don't think my position is the same as asserting that we should act like libertarians, as I have (now) described my conception of the situation, I just think I should act consistent with this conception. By analogy, there are still people who say atheists often act according to "religious" moral values, but in fact they're not—it's just that morality is mode of behaviour that has all the same functions regardless of one's belief system.
"Optimism is a duty. The future is open. It is not predetermined. No one can predict it, except by chance. We all contribute to determining it by what we do. We are all equally responsible for its success." --Karl Popper
Agree wholeheartedly. I'm trying to describe transcending the realisation of determinism, in the sense of not getting bogged down by it, to then go about living a good human life.
In the absence of AI we can already pass through this phase of realisation/acceptance (the nausea of the realisation of being an object)
Clearly—Sartre was going through it in the early 20th century. I think, while I've never had much trouble with squaring my existence with materialism, I do feel like this period is giving me somewhat of a relapse, and as you say, this is not really within my control.
This feels like the intersection of Analytic and Continental Philosophy
Exactly, I think I was having a continental moment, please do forgive me, we can now return to our scheduled rationality. But really, that's what I'm on about, our claim on rationality has, I guess, been pretty important to me, and I may just be suffering the side effects of seeing it being eroded in real time (the claim, not the rationality itself).
Continental moments are great. I feel like that's the end game once we transcend science and analysis.
What will I do when I grow up, if AI can do everything?
One interesting this about this question is that it comes from an implicit frame in which humans must do something to support their survival.
This is deeply ingrained in our biology and culture. As animals, we carry in us the well-worn drives to survive and reproduce, for which if we did not possess we not not exist because our ancestors would never have created the unbroken chain of billions of years that led to us. And with those drives comes the need to do something useful to those ends.
As humans, we are enmeshed in a culture that exists at the frontier of a long process of becoming ever better at working together to get better at surviving, because those cultures that did it better outcompeted those that were worse at it. And so we approach our entire lives with this question in our minds: what actions will I take that contribute to my survival and the survival of my society?
Transformative AI stands to break the survival frame, where the problem of our survival is put into the hands of beings more powerful than ourselves. And so then the question becomes, what do we do if we don't have to do anything to survive?
I imagine quite a lot of things! Consider what it is like to be a pet kept by humans. They have all their survival needs met for them. Some of them are so inexperienced at surviving that they'd probably die if their human caretakers disappeared, and others would make it but without the experience of years of caring for their own survival to make them experts at it. What do they do given they don't have to fight to survive? They live in luxury and happiness, if their caretakers love them and are skillful, or suffering and sorrow, if their caretakers don't or aren't.
So perhaps like a dog who lives to chase a ball or a cat who lives for napping in the sun, we will one day live to tell stories, to play games, or to simply enjoy the pleasures of being alive. Let us hope that's the world we manage to create!
Well that is (commendably) the most positive interpretation of the pet hypothesis I've heard. When we think about it, we're really half way there already. By many measures, many of us are living in what anyone in the past would call Utopia, and are very much cared for by many over-arching systems, the market, the government, the internet. I've also never been one to complain "Oh, but what will I do with all my spare time if I don't have to work?"
Perhaps my daughter will have time to reach goals she actually wants to achieve rather than those of necessity. I appreciate your thoughts.
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