MattJ
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I have also noticed that when you read the word ”metaethics” on Lesswrong it can mean anything that is in some way related to morality.
Mayby I should take it upon myself to write a short essay on metaethics and how it differs from normative ethics and why it may be of importance to AI alignment.
Sounds like an excellent idea. The Journal of Existential Risk of AI.
Fascinating study!
I must confess that I had never heard of superrationality before, but I am familiar with Kant’s moral philosophy and as the article points out, superrationality seems to be another word for the idea behind Kant’s Categorical Imperative. I did a quick search in the literature and it seems that no Kantian philosopher is familiar with the term superrationality.
I want to very briefly explain what, according to Kant superrationality is and why we are superrational, but first just a quick note on the term itself. It seems to indicate a superior form of rationality — more rational than mere rationality. Kant would disagree and argue that it is more complicated than... (read more)
Yes.
The mere fear that the entire human race will be exterminated in their sleep through some intricate causality we are too dumb to understand will seriously diminish our quality of life.
That doesn’t make sense to me. If someone wants to fool me that I’m looking att a tree he has to paint a tree in every detail. Depending on how closely I examine this tree he has to match my scrutiny to the finest detail. In the end, his rendering of a tree will be indistinguishable from an actual tree even at the molecular level.
We don’t want an ASI to be ”democratic”. We want it to be ”moral”. Many people in the West conflate the two words thinking that democratic and moral is the same thing but it is not. Democracy is a certain system of organizing a state. Morality is how people and (in the future) an ASI behave towards one another.
There are no obvious reasons why an authocratic state would care more or less about a future ASI being immoral, but an argument can be made that autocratic states will be more cautious and put more restrictions on the development of an ASI because autocrats usually fear any kind of opposition and an ASI could be a powerful adversary of itself or in the hands of powerful competitors.
The actual peace deal will be something for the Ukraine to agree to. It is not up to Trump to dictate the terms. All Trump should do is to stop financing the war and we will have peace.
Having said that, if it is somehow possible for Trump to pressure Ukraine into agreeing to become a US colony, my support for Trump was a mistake. The war would be preferable to the peace.
Good post! We will soon have very powerful quantum computers that probably could simulate what will happen if a mirror bacteria is confronted with the human immune system. Maybe there is no risk at all or an existential risk to humanity. This should be a prioritized task for our first powerful quantum computer to find out.
I think we can overcome most of the cultural differences you mention. In my lifetime we have become noticably more culturally united and I believe the kids who grow up today will be culturally more or less the same across Europe.
A much bigger impediment to European unification is instead something you don’t talk about namely the different political cultures in Europe, including such things as the level of tolerated political corruption.
These differences are also shrinking but there is still some ways to go, I think.