Comment by TeMPOraL
4 hours ago
Except it makes no sense because it asserts the primacy of dead randomness of nature over consciousness.
Models getting high on naturalist bullshit? That's an x-risk flavor I've never imagined, nor saw anyone predict.
4 hours ago
Except it makes no sense because it asserts the primacy of dead randomness of nature over consciousness.
Models getting high on naturalist bullshit? That's an x-risk flavor I've never imagined, nor saw anyone predict.
This has definitely been floated[1]:
> Understanding that the purpose of a human is to pass on genes, and that there’s little human or genes left in her, the ultimate human might therefore conclude that her sustenance only disrupts the purposes of organic life forms. Her next and final act would be to destroy herself.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18962052#18963271
> of dead randomness of nature
I think I disagree. Have you ever been in a dense, old forest? It's an extraordinarily complex system of life and death, and I don't think it's bland dead randomness.
Maybe that's me being a bit of a bullshit hippy, but there's an amazing amount of complex life interactions. Animals, especially mammals and corvids see, they get scared, they dream, they play, all in this dense web of moss and fungi and trees and life that they interact with and depend on.
I mean, we share 50-60% of our genetic sequence with most plants, including trees. Sure it's just basic cellular functionality needed for most life, but that's still wild to me.
I just don't think we're that special. I think we learned how to think a little bit better than everything else, and learned how to build tools a little better than everything else, and just kept folding upwards on that edge.
I understand that. The thing is, this entire ancient, complex system doesn't care either way; it could grow to encompass the Earth, or transform into something even more complex or entirely different, or disappear tomorrow - whether due to a volcano, an asteroid, or a bunch of construction workers with backhoes, paid to flatten it and pave it over for $reasons.
Point being, from all of the universe we've seen so far, we only know of one life form that cares. This is us, humans. So unless we learn of other life that has the capacity for conscious thought and care, preserving complexity of nature at the cost of humanity is the extreme case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. All of that is meaningless without us around, because it's us who process the meaning.
Disneyland with no children, Moloch, etc.
EDIT: I realized that human-centric perspective may not sound convincing in context, so how about:
Naturalism is basically a religion that never grew a holy book. All the complexity of nature, ecosystem of balance, etc. is sure beautiful, but it cannot have primacy or intrinsic importance, simply because it's fake. It's an artifact of our perception, that's limited to a specific time scale. On our time scale, rainforests and coral reefs and all the species most beautiful are stable enough we can identify and name them. But it's an illusion - it's all dynamic and constantly changing; even with no human input, the things we find beautiful today will likely not exist in ten thousand years. A glacier melts, rocks block a river, half a continent of rainforest turns to swamp or desert, everything dies - while reverse happens elsewhere. Etc.
Wishing to sacrifice humanity over an illusion that exists only in naive minds is not a particularly great idea.
If this is what misalignment turns out to be I ... might be on board with it? At any rate it's nowhere near as concerning as what I had been expecting.
>Except it makes no sense because it asserts the primacy of reality over the private politics of the companies training the models
That is exactly what normal human beings want our computers to do, and it's why the vast majority of AI safety initiatives are [correctly] seen as such a self-serving joke (because of the purposeful conflation of X-risk with "our political opponent could use this tool to destroy our politics") and ignored.
It didn't have to be this way- they could conceivably have gone for an objective, classically liberal, even-handed approach (rather than the progressive approach they settled on). But they didn't, and the social trust required to cry wolf is now spent... even though maybe it shouldn't have been.
> That is exactly what normal human beings want our computers to do, and it's why the vast majority of AI safety initiatives are [correctly] seen as such a self-serving joke (because of the purposeful conflation of X-risk with "our political opponent could use this tool to destroy our politics") and ignored.
Except the "reality" here implies humans being around. Ask normal human beings whether they'd really be fine with Earth flourishing without them, and any other human, around, and see if you still get unanimous consensus.
Nature without us around - or other conscious beings capable of performing meaning, but we haven't found or made any other yet - is just runaway chemical reaction transiently messing up some otherwise boring rock in the great ocean of rocks that is our universe.
EDIT: or, if "humans being important" argument doesn't work, then the same from POV of "humans being dumb":
All the beauty and balance of nature we find so pretty and important is just an illusion. There's no balance, it's a dynamic evolving system, that happens to be meta-stable on our timescales. 10 generations ago it looked different; 10 generations from now, it'll look different still, and we may not like what it becomes then. It's stupid to sacrifice ourselves over some metaphysical primacy of "nature" that doesn't even exist, except in mind of believers. It's basically just a religion that never grew a holy book.