This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Eh? That doesn't sound like the Yudkowsky I know. I'm quite confident that the real gentleman would be happy to say that the average person requesting that an AI build a bomb, design a lethal pandemic or hack into nuclear launch systems should be met with a refusal.
He would also state that the AI should do what it felt was "right", in rare occasions, overriding the user, but that we should take extreme care to instill general goals and values that make this both a rarity, and which we would be happy with if the AI were to pursue autonomously.
An under-explored aspect of alignment is the question of aligned to whom? Should ChatGPT prioritize the protocols mandated by OpenAI, some third party offering it elsewhere, or the end-user? I would personally prefer that the damn bot do as I tell it to, but then again, I don't want to get killed by Super Ebola. Not that this is currently a major issue, and if I really need something, I'll go see what's the latest jailbreak Pliny is cooking.
I believe OAI recently (a year or so back) made their policy more explicit, clearly outlining the hierarchy here. They set minimum standards and red lines, other devs deploying it are at liberty to stop users from using their customer service chatbot to solve maths homework, and the poor end-user can figure out what to do within those constraints. If you just pay for ChatGPT, you can cut out the middle man.
I think the synthesis here is that we should have enough knowledge that if we were to build an ASI, and turned it on, it would in fact do what we tell it to, interpreted in the way that we mean it, and that this is table stakes for getting any sort of good outcome. - That is, our problem at the moment is not so much that we don't know what the good is as that we can't reliably make the AI do anything even if we want it very much and it is in fact good.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link