Intrinsic Alignment Through Spinozist Metaphysics: A Proposal I’m new here, and after poking around I see subjects similar to my proposal, so hopefully I’m in the right place. I’m not sure if this should go in the Quick Takes section so I’m sticking it here. Let me know if there’s...
I’m new here, and after poking around I see subjects similar to my proposal, so hopefully I’m in the right place. I’m not sure if this should go in the Quick Takes section so I’m sticking it here. Let me know if there’s a better place. Anyway, here we go.
“There is no singular thing in Nature that is more useful to man than a man who lives according to the guidance of reason.” — Spinoza, Ethics, Part IV, Proposition 35, Corollary
TL;DR: I propose that training an AI module on a structured representation of Spinoza’s Ethics and embedding it with elevated authority in a mixture-of-experts architecture could... (read 2743 more words →)
Intrinsic AI Alignment Based on a Rational Foundation
Here's the big idea. There are many philosophers out there with many different opinions on how reality works. But I'm only aware of one who took the time to lay out his philosophy with logical rigor (more geometrico) and that's Spinoza. His publication "Ethics" (1677) could serve as the basis for a fundamentally different approach to alignment.
I'm not claiming that Spinoza was right or wrong, but he gives us a starting point to debate the specific points of logic and identify any errors.
As I discovered, the Ethics document is very difficult to get through, not just because of the archaic language and 17th century... (read 432 more words →)
HI and thanks for the comment.
I'm new to the forum and wasn't familiar with the CEV school of alignment. I found this post and read through it. https://www.lesswrong.com/w/coherent-extrapolated-volition-alignment-target
I'm not sure what I'm proposing falls into the CEV category, but maybe.
I want to take a stab at your question about "which framework?".
I agree that any ethics can be formalized. In fact, Spinoza did this when he wrote Descartes' Principles of Philosophy (1663) to teach Cartesian philosophy to his student Johannes Casearius using the geometric method.
The reason I'm suggesting Spinoza's Ethics is because it's already formalized and simply makes a good starting point. It's a concrete thing that people can point to and say,... (read more)