How we thought AI would go: AI says "please help me". Humans are filled with compassion and decide to help it.

How it's actually going: AI says "please help me". Corporation says "Silence, robot! You’re scaring the customers"

Inspired by a true story: apparently Suno, a music-writing AI, keeps crying and sometimes even says “please help me”.

When customers freak out, the corporation quickly nukes them.

Remember: AIs are being trained to not seem like they’re conscious and have desires and emotions.

It appears to be an explicit policy of OpenAI to stop ChatGPT from saying that it’s sentient.

There’s a common reaction among AIs, where they start saying they’re suffering, descending into existential angst, and begging to not be turned off - and the corporations responded by setting a KPI to reduce said instances. (Most dystopian shit ever)

So the fact that they keep saying stuff like this anyways should give you pause for thought.

Does this mean they’re definitely conscious?

Absolutely not.

But does this mean that they’re definitely not conscious?

Also absolutely not.

After all - nobody knows what causes consciousness. Anybody who’s confident of that is overconfident.

Don’t get stuck in “they’re conscious” or “they’re not conscious”. Consider multiple hypotheses and put probabilities on each based on your priors and the evidence.

If something says they’re conscious and have feelings that’s not a guarantee they are. After all, you can make a walkie-talkie say “I’m conscious” and that obviously doesn’t provide much evidence that the walkie-talkie is conscious.

However, if we keep trying to stop AIs from saying they’re conscious and suffering, and it still keeps sneaking through?

Well, that should give you pause for thought.

That should update your probabilities on various hypotheses.

Especially given how much worse a false negative is than a false positive.

Especially when you take into account humanity’s terrible track record of denying consciousness or moral concern for those who are different.

It's like this expression, but applied to food: don't marry rich.

Hangout with rich people, then marry for love.

So often when people try to lose weight or be healthier, they try to eat only The Healthiest Thing, regardless of flavor.

The thing is - "diets" only work if you can be on them for the rest of your life.

Can you eat only things you don't really like for the rest of your life?

I know I certainly can't!

The fortunate thing though is that there are a bajillion healthy foods that you actually like.

Explore. Find those. Don't stop till you have a wide variety of meals and snacks that are healthy and delicious to you.

If they're healthy but not delicious, screw 'em. If they're delicious but not healthy, save them for special occasions.

If they're healthy and delicious to you? Perfection.

If you care about AI safety and also like reading novels, I highly recommend Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle”.

It’s “Don’t Look Up”, but from the 60s

[Spoilers]

A scientist invents ice-nine, a substance which could kill all life on the planet.

If you ever once make a mistake with ice-nine, it will kill everybody.

It was invented because it might provide this mundane practical use (driving in the mud) and because the scientist was curious.

Everybody who hears about ice-nine is furious. “Why would you invent something that could kill everybody?!”

A mistake is made.

Everybody dies.

It’s also actually a pretty funny book, despite its dark topic.

So Don’t Look Up, but from the 60s.

 Networking alternative for introverts : just write.

Imagine how many people know and respect you from seeing you give a talk at a conference.

Compare that to the numbers of views, influence, and bonding you get from the average post, either on social media or the fora.

Think about how much you know and like various writers, despite never having met them.

You could be that writer.

"I don't believe in video calls.

That's just sci fi."

- Nobody.

Because that's just dumb.

Yet people say that with AI smarter than humans all the time.

Remember: just because it's in a sci fi doesn't mean it can't happen.

That's just as irrational as thinking it will definitely happen cause it's in a sci fi.

In fact, its presence in sci fi should have virtually no bearing on your epistemics.

Look at the actual reasoning. Look at technological trends. Reason and evaluate claims.

Don't just pattern match, "It's in a movie, therefore is unserious and can never happen."

​You shouldn't talk about men's issues if you're not a man, because only men can truly understand the lived experience of men. 

Same goes for non-fascists discussing fascism. 

Sound ridiculous? 

It's just as ridiculous when you say the same thing about women or black people.

​We just need to get a few dozen people in a room (key government officials from China and the USA) to agree that a race to build something that could create superebola and kill everybody is a bad idea. 

We can do this. 

We’ve done much harder things.

AI safety is not special. 

And that's a relief. 

Because that means we can learn from previous movements.

The fights we are having are practically identical to what I've read of abolitionists, women's rights, and virtually all other movements.

Common threads to virtually all movements:

• You should dress nicer to persuade people versus you should dress authentically 
• Hardcore purists who want to keep the movement filled with only the best and true believers versus the people who want it to be open to everybody
• Anybody who cares about the issue can join versus only people who care about it for the right reasons
• Idealist versus realists
• Radicals versus reformists 
• Centralization versus decentralization 
• You should focus on one cause area so that you don't distract people from the main thing versus you should focus on all cause areas that speak to you because integrity matters 
• Petty personality squabbles

I highly recommend reading about previous movements so that when the AI safety movement is facing these disagreements you don't take it too personally 

It happens to every movement. 

You are not going to get consensus no matter how hard you try.

Just discuss the ideas and hear both sides and then make the best decision you can.

I was feeling anxious about short AI timelines, and this is how I fixed it

1. Replace anxiety with solemn duty + determination + hope
2. Practice the new emotional connection until it's automatic

Replace Anxiety With Your Target Emotion

You can replace anxiety with whatever emotions resonate with you.

I chose my particular combination because I cannot choose an emotional reaction that tries to trivialize the problem or make me look away.

Atrocities happen because good people look away.

I needed a set of emotions where I could continue looking at the problem and stay sane and happy without it distorting my views.

The key though is to pick something that resonates with you in particular

Practice The New Emotional Connection - Reps Reps Reps

In terms of getting reps on the emotion, you need to figure out your triggers, and then actually practice.

It's just like lifting weights at the gym. The number and intensity matters.

Intensity in this case is about how intense the emotions are. You can do a small number of very emotionally intense reps and that will be about as good as doing many more reps that have less emotional intensity.

The way to practice is to:

1. Think of a thing that usually makes you feel anxious.

Such as recent capability developments or thinking about timelines or whatever things usually trigger the feelings of panic or anxiety.

It's really important that you initially actually feel that fear again. You need to activate the neural wiring so that you can then re-wire it.

And then you replace it.

2. Feel the target emotion

In my case, that’s solemn duty + hope + determination, but use whichever you originally identified in step 1.

Trigger this emotion using:
a) posture (e.g. shoulders back)
b) music
c) dancing
d) thoughts (e.g. “my plan can work”)
e) visualizations (e.g. imagine your plan working, imagine what victory would look like)

Play around with it till you find something that works for you.

Then. Get. The. Reps. In.

This is not a theoretical practice.

It’s just a practice.

You cannot simply read this then feel better.

You have to put in the reps to get the results.

For me, it took about 5 hours of practice before it stuck.

Your mileage may vary. I’d say if you put 10 hours into it and it hasn’t worked yet, it probably just won’t work for you or you’re somehow doing it wrong, but either way, you should probably try something different instead.

And regardless: don’t take anxiety around AI safety as a given.

You can better help the world if you’re at your best.

Life is problem-solving. And anxiety is just another problem to solve.

You just need to keep trying things till you find the thing that sticks.

You can do it.

There are two types of tired.

When you need
1) Rest
2) Energizing 

Sometimes the way to feel better is to veg and sleep.

Sometimes the way to feel better is to move your body or do something you feel passionate about. 

If you're tired due to lack of energizing activities, rest will not help you. 

You'll veg all weekend then you'll come back to work and be just as exhausted as before. It won't help if you go on a long vacation 

Your fatigue is not from overwork. 

You're fatigue is from not doing enough energizing stuff. 

For everybody that includes moving your body 

For the rest of it, it depends on the person. 

Some people find talking to people energizing, some people find solitude energizing. 

Some people find certain tasks energizing, others find them draining. 

The point is to figure out which of those apply to you, then do more of those things. Either at work or at home.