I love it! Kind of like Gödel numbers!
I think we're sorta saying the same thing, right?
Like, you'd need to be "outside" the box to verify these things, correct?
So we can imagine potential connections (I can imagine a tree falling, and making sound, as it were) but unless there is some type of real reference— say the the realities intersect, or there's a higher dimension, or we see light/feel gravity or what have you— they don't exist from "inside", no?
Even imagining things connects or references them to some extent… that's what I meant about unknown unknowns (if I didn't edit that bit out)… even if that does go to extremes.
Does this reasoning make sense? I know defining existence is pretty abstract, to say the least. :)
My point is that complexity, no matter how objective a concept, is relative. Things we thought were "hard" or "complex" before, turn out to not be so much, now.
Still with me? Agree, disagree?
Patterns are a way of managing complexity, sorta, so perhaps if we see some patterns that work to ensure "human alignment[1]", they will also work for "AI alignment" (tho mostly I think there is a wide wide berth betwixt the two, and the later can only exist after of the former).
We like to think we're so much smarter than the humans that came before us, and that things — society, relationships, technology — are so much more complicated than they were before, but I believe a lot of that is just perception and bias.
If we do get to AGI and ASI, it's going to be pretty dang cool to have a different perspective on it, and I for one do not fear the future.
assuming alignment is possible— "how strong of a consensus is needed?" etc.
For something to "exist", it must relate, somehow, to something else, right?
If so, everything relates to everything else by extension, and to some degree, thus "it's all relative".
Some folk on LW have said I should fear Evil AI more than Rogue Space Rock Collisions, and yet, we keep having near misses with these rocks that "came out of nowhere".
I'm more afraid of humans humaning, than of sentient computers humaning.
Is not the biggest challenge we face the same as it has been— namely spreading ourselves across multiple rocks and other places in space, so all our eggs aren't on a single rock, as it were?
I don't know. I think so. But I also think we should do things in as much as a group as possible, and with as much free will as possible.
If I persuade someone, did I usurp their free will? There's strength in numbers, generally, so the more people you persuade, the more people you persuade, so to speak. Which is kind of frightening.
What if the "bigger" danger is the Evil AI? Or Climate Change? Or Biological Warfare? Global Nuclear Warfare would be bad too. Is it our duty to try to organize our fellow existence-sharers, and align them with working towards idea X? Is there a Root Idea that might make tackling All of the Above™ easier?
Is trying to avoid leadership a cop-out? Are the ideas of free will, and group alignment, at odds with each other?
Why not just kick back and enjoy the show? See where things go? Because as long as we exist, we somehow, inescapably, relate? How responsible is the individual, really, in the grand scheme of things? And is "short" a relative concept? Why is my form so haphazard? Can I stop this here[1]?
It's a weird one to think about, and perhaps paradoxicle. Order and chaos are flip sides of the same coin— with some amorphous 3rd as the infinitely varied combinations of the two!
The new patterns are made from the old patterns. How hard is it to create something totally new, when it must be created from existing matter, or existing energy, or existing thoughts? It must relate, somehow, or else it doesn't "exist"[1]. That relation ties it down, and by tying it down, gives it form.
For instance, some folk are mad at computer-assisted image creation, similar to how some folk were mad at computer-aided music. "A Real Artist does X— these people just push some buttons!" "This is stealing jobs from Real Artists!" "This automation will destroy the economy!"
We go through what seem to be almost the same patterns, time and again: Recording will ruin performances. Radio broadcasts will ruin recording and the economy. Pictures will ruin portraits. Video will ruin pictures. Music Video will run radio and pictures. Or whatever. There's the looms/Luddites, and perhaps in ancient China the Shang were like "down with the printing press!" [2]
I'm just not sure what constitutes a change and what constitutes a swap. It's like that Ship of Theseus's we often speak of… thus it's about identity, or definitions, if you will. What is new? What is old?
Could complexity really amount to some form a familiarity? If you can relate well with X, it generally does not seem so complex. If you can show people how X relates to Y, perhaps you have made X less complex? We can model massive systems — like the weather, poster child of complexity — more accurately than ever. If anything, everything has tended towards less complex, over time, when looked at from a certain vantage point. Everything but the human heart. Heh.
I'm sure I'm doing a terrible job of explaining what I mean, but perhaps I can sum it up by saying that complexity is subjective/relative? That complexity is an effect of different frames of reference and relation, as much as anything?
And that ironically, the relations that make things simple can also make them complex? Because relations connect things to other things, and when you change one connected thing it can have knock-on effects and… oh no, I've logiced myself into knots!
How much does any of this relate to your comment? To my original post?
Does "less complex" == "Good"? And does that mean complexity is bad? (Assuming complexity exists objectively of course, as it seems like it might be where we draw lines, almost arbitrarily, between relationships.)
Could it be that "good" AI is "simple" AI, and that's all there is to it?
Of course, then it is no real AI at all, because, by definition…
Sheesh! It's Yin-Yangs all the way down[3]! ☯️🐢🐘➡️♾️
Contributes about as much as a "me too!" comment.
"I think this is wrong and demonstrating flawed reasoning" would be more a substantive repudiation with some backing as to why you think the data is, in fact, representative of "true" productivity values.
This statement makes a lot more sense than your "sounds like cope" rejoinder brief explanation:
Having a default base of being extremely skeptical of sweeping claims based on extrapolations on GDP metrics seems like a prudent default.
You don't have to look far to see people, um, not exactly satisfied with how we're measuring productivity. To some extent, productivity might even be a philosophical question. Can you measure happiness? Do outcomes matter more than outputs? How does quality of life factor in? In sum, how do you measure stuff that is by its very nature, difficult to measure?
I love that we're trying to figure it out! Like, is network traffic included in these stats? Would that show anything interesting? How about amounts of information/content being produced/accumulated? (tho again— quality is always an "interesting" one to measure.)
I dunno. It's fun to think about tho, *I think*. Perhaps literal data is accounted for in the data… but I'd think we're be on an upward trend if so? Seems like we're making more and more year after year… At any rate, thanks for playing, regardless!
Illustrative perhaps?
Am I wrong re: Death? Have you personally feared it all your life?
Frustratingly, all I can speak from is my own experience, and what people have shared with me, and I have no way to objectively verify that anything is "true".
I am looking at reality and saying "It seems this way to me; does it seem this way to you?"
That— and experiencing love and war &c. — is maybe why we're "here"… but who knows, right?
Signals, and indeed, opposites, are an interesting concept! What does it all mean? Yin and yang and what have you…
Would you agree that it's hard to be scared of something you don't believe in?
And if so, do you agree that some people don't believe in death?
Like, we could define it at the "reality" level of "do we even exist?" (which I think is apart from life & death per se), or we could use the "soul is eternal" one, but regardless, it appears to me that lots of people don't believe they will die, much less contemplate it. (Perhaps we need to start putting "death" mottoes on all our clocks again to remind us?)
How do you think believing in the eternal soul jives with "alignment"? Do you think there is a difference between aiming to live as long as possible, versus as to live as well as possible?
Does it seem to you that humans agree on the nature of existence, much less what is good and bad therein? How do you think belief affects people's choices? Should I be allowed to kill myself? To get an abortion? Eat other entities? End a photon's billion year journey?
When will an AI be "smart enough" that we consider it alive, and thus deletion is killing? Is it "okay" (morally, ethically?) to take life, to preserve life?
To say "do no harm" is easy. But to define harm? Have it programed in[1]? Yeesh— that's hard!
Avoiding physical harm is a given I think
LOL! Gesturing in a vague direction is fine. And I get it. My kind of rationality is for sure in the minority here, I knew it wouldn't be getting updoots. Wasn't sure that was required or whatnot, but I see that it is. Which is fine. Content moderation separates the wheat from the chaff and the public interwebs from personal blogs or whatnot.
I'm a nitpicker too, sometimes, so it would be neat to suss out further why the not new idea that “everything in some way connects to everything else" is "false" or technically incorrect, as it were, but I probably didn't express what I meant well (really, it's not a new idea, maybe as old as questions about trees falling in forests— and about as provable I guess).
Heh, I didn't even really know I was debating, I reckon. Just kind of thinking, I was thinking. Thus the questioning ideas or whatnot… but it's in the title, kinda, right? Or at least less wrong? Ha! Regardless, thanks for the gesture(s), and no worries!