Thank you, to the people who have the strength and the moral resolve to look at that darkness in the world.
Here's a scenario* I imagine if it was aligned with my values. I imagine a pig in a factory farm, screaming as she is lowered into the gas chamber. I imagine suddenly, the gears stop moving. Suddenly, through something that looks like magic to us and to a pig, but is no more magic than the internet is, she is in a grass field with her babies. She’s in the perfect environment for pigs, whatever that is. The pig, for the first time in her life, is safe and happy and free. I imagine a North Korean woman being beaten by the guards of her prison camp, trying to protect her belly in the likely chance she’s pregnant from the repeated rapes from these very same prison guards. I imagine suddenly, the beatings stop. She looks up, and through something that seems as magic to her as electricity seems magic to a cat, she is home. Her family is there and they hug and cry. For the first time since she was disappeared in the middle of the night, she is safe and happy and free. I imagine this happening everywhere. For all of the immense suffering in this world. For every big, gnarly, seemingly impossible problem in this world. I imagine something far smarter than I could ever be. I imagine something far more good than I could ever be. Going around solving it in a way that, when I look at it, fills me with the deepest joy I can imagine. I imagine the AI showing itself to me in a form I would find the most inspiring and telling me “You helped make this happen. You took action. And one of those actions was really important for making this happen So many terrible outcomes could have happened, but because you and others did something about it, now we’re here. So, what would you like to do, now that you can do pretty much whatever you want?” And she’ll smile, because she’ll already know what I want to do. And then she’ll give me my paradise. I’ll spend the next few decades just seeing all of the happy people. I’ll see what their lives were like before, and I’ll watch the transformations. (Recordings, with no sentience repeating the suffering) I’ll see the end of torture. I’ll see the end of abuse. I’ll see the end of war. I’ll see the end of hunger. I’ll see the end of illness. I’ll see the beginnings of love. Of joy Of awe Of adventure Of freedom. I will just bask in all of the happiness. In all of the suffering averted. I don’t know how long I’ll do it for. Years? Decades? I don’t know. But I will bask. And after? I don’t even know. I haven’t gotten that far. I’ll figure it out when we get there. But for now - let’s just try to make sure we get there. Cause this future is one worth fighting for. * (Usual caveat: any specific scenario is unlikely, but it can be helpful to imagine scenarios anyways. We need to balance our goals of what we're avoiding with a vision of what we want)
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Thank you to the people who have the strength and the moral resolve to look at the darkness in the world.
I know it's hard, but we can only fix the problems we can look at. Let's try to make sure that the superintelligent AI doesn't learn from how most humans treat animals. Let's try to make sure that the AI cares about all beings, no matter how intelligent, no matter how cute, no matter how emotionally salient. Let's make a superbenevolent AI, that is not just smarter than any human, but more kind than any human. Anybody who says that there is a 0% chance of AIs being sentient is overconfident.
Nobody knows what causes consciousness. We currently have no way of detecting it, and we can barely agree on a definition of it. You can only be certain that you yourself are conscious. Everything else is speculation and so should be less than 100% certainty if you are being intellectually rigorous. Deeply getting the horror of factory farming is the single biggest predictor of whether you’re worried about s-risks.
Because you know that it's not sci fi. You know that it’s already happening. You have seen what a superintelligent race does to those less intelligent. You know there are fates worse than death. And you know that we must fight it. With everything we've got. |
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