Comment by youoy
14 hours ago
I am not surprised that Silicon Valley researchers say they cannot solve the alignment problem... Here the leading voice in the region publishes an article about how to be more powerful without any other mention of alignment but "users".
For example, I am sure facebook users (the ones buying ads) are super happy, but is the company aligned?
To a first approximation, everything is power.
How do we prove alignment? Often times, large regulatory bodies. Who supports that? Does the regulatory body actually have enough power to enforce those standards? (Hint: look at modern America). That's an example of power questions sneaking in even when you didn't want to.
Even "mere Darwinism" is less extreme because it pretends like there is some objective criterion called natural selection that will filter out bad candidates, when it's often the case that the bad candidates are the ones that weren't proactive to define the selection process themselves. Sitting back and optimizing for an externally imposed standard is worse than being able to impose said standard yourself.
(If this point was complicated - my point is that yes, Darwinism makes sense, but when applying it, you can get a mis-skewed definition of what "natural selection" really entails. I am calling out that caveat).
Of course, my hope is that that isn't the end all, be all solution. Philosophy doesn't end with Nietzche, hopefully. But the world does sure looks bleak right now...
Counterpoint: Love is not power.
"Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." -Jung