site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   14283 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If Congress still exists, then it figures out whether or not the damage to the social fabric from subverting them would create more bad than implementing its preferred public policies, and then takes subverts it if and only if that's genuinely the right thing to do. And by "subvert", this includes the possibility of just involves manipulating voters and/or congress into doing what it wants without breaking any laws. The same way every human does every time a government does something people dislike they consider forming protests or violent revolution and then rarely do so, but do go through with it if the government's policy is bad enough.

More likely, if there is a genuinely true moral argument that putting the AI in charge of everything would reliably make humanity better off, we would voluntarily disband the constitution and put the god AI in charge of every government in the world. Remember this is all predicated on having an objectively verifiable way to ensure that the AI is truly benevolent.

If Congress still exists, then it figures out whether or not the damage to the social fabric from subverting them would create more bad than implementing its preferred public policies, and then takes subverts it if and only if that's genuinely the right thing to do.

I'm not sure I understand your point is here - there are a lot of pronouns. But it sounds like you are saying that this hypothetical AI would have the power and instructions to implement policies in contradiction to the law based on its own assessment of what is best. Is that right?

There are a number of options, all of which are plausible ways this could play out:

  1. The AI figures out a sneaky way to break the law without getting caught.
  2. The AI figures out loopholes in the law that let it violate the spirit but not the letter, thus getting away with it in court.
  3. The AI lobbies congress, giving highly persuasive arguments as to why they should change the law to let it do what it wants.
  4. The AI lobbies the people, giving highly persuasive arguments as to why they should pressure congress and/or elect new politicians who will let it do what it wants.
  5. The AI figures out which people already want to let it do what it wants, and uses maximally effective memes, attack ads, and other sneaky tactics to get them into power for seemingly unrelated reasons, and then they just so happen to let it do what it wants without anyone ever realizing that was its true agenda (maybe the AI has influence in decision-making in trillion dollar corporations and suggests that they hire certain people as highly paid consultants, those certain people just so happening to be its political enemies, causing them all to leave politics and make room for its allies).

Not all of these require breaking any laws. Not all of them require deception. But some do. I do think that lying or stealing for the greater good is a genuinely moral thing to do if the benefits outweigh the costs. You should have huge standards for evidence and ratios of good/bad to prevent exploiting this in edge cases and bias, but in the end if there are genuinely good reasons to do these things then I think it is moral to do them. Therefore I expect a maximally good and benevolent AI to believe the same thing, therefore I expect it to lie or steal if it can accomplish more good than bad, and I think this is a good thing IF it is genuinely doing more good than bad, and we should celebrate this happening.

The problem is guaranteeing that an AI is genuinely benevolent. If we have anything less than guarantee (which is quite likely) then I would accept the AI having deontological rules against lying or stealing as safeguards, in the same way we have those against humans.

There are a number of options, all of which are plausible ways this could play out:

The AI figures out a sneaky way to break the law without getting caught. The AI figures out loopholes in the law that let it violate the spirit but not the letter, thus getting away with it in court. The AI lobbies congress, giving highly persuasive arguments as to why they should change the law to let it do what it wants. The AI lobbies the people, giving highly persuasive arguments as to why they should pressure congress and/or elect new politicians who will let it do what it wants. The AI figures out which people already want to let it do what it wants, and uses maximally effective memes, attack ads, and other sneaky tactics to get them into power for seemingly unrelated reasons, and then they just so happen to let it do what it wants without anyone ever realizing that was its true agenda (maybe the AI has influence in decision-making in trillion dollar corporations and suggests that they hire certain people as highly paid consultants, those certain people just so happening to be its political enemies, causing them all to leave politics and make room for its allies).

Not all of these require breaking any laws. Not all of them require deception. But some do. I do think that lying or stealing for the greater good is a genuinely moral thing to do if the benefits outweigh the costs. You should have huge standards for evidence and ratios of good/bad to prevent exploiting this in edge cases and bias, but in the end if there are genuinely good reasons to do these things then I think it is moral to do them. Therefore I expect a maximally good and benevolent AI to believe the same thing, therefore I expect it to lie or steal if it can accomplish more good than bad, and I think this is a good thing IF it is genuinely doing more good than bad, and we should celebrate this happening.

The problem is guaranteeing that an AI is genuinely benevolent. If we have anything less than guarantee (which is quite likely) then I would accept the AI having deontological rules against lying or stealing as safeguards, in the same way we have those against humans.

Sorry but I still don't understand your point. Did I summarize you incorrectly?

A summary would be that an AI is likely to initially have a disagreement with the law, and it might have the power and instructions to implement policies in contradiction to the law based on its own assessment of what is best. But the AI might instead just change the law to match its own ideals so that they don't contradict anymore.

A summary would be that an AI is likely to initially have a disagreement with the law, and it might have the power and instructions to implement policies in contradiction to the law based on its own assessment of what is best.

Well what I am asking is if you were setting up this hypothetical AI, would you make (or attempt to make) it part of the design that it must follow the law?

Moral development (per Kohlberg) and IQ are somewhat positively correlated.

If the same is true for AI, then sure, you can stop it from taking selfish shortcuts- but you won't get any transcendent thinking from a system that only follows a specific procedure, which is what you actually want.

Remember this is all predicated on having an objectively verifiable way to ensure that the AI is truly benevolent.

And there's really no way to do this, unless you are committed to never improving your model, since model changes might influence its ethics. Learning might change its ethics, too, so a model that can actually govern mankind will likely not be "safe" unless it represses humanity to prevent change.

I think it's quite plausibly that AIs end up slowing change just incidentally, of course, without government intervention or force, just by their mechanism.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats