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I posted, but deleted this in response to a previous AI thread, but I think it actually aged better with Elon's signature to the letter yesterday and Yud's oped:
I am not a Musk fanboy, but I'll say this, Elon Musk very transparently cares about the survival of humanity as humanity, and it is deeply present down to a biological drive to reproduce his own genes. Musk openly worries about things like dropping birth rates, while also personally spotlighting his own rabbit-like reproductive efforts. Musk clearly is a guy who wants and expects his own genes to spread, last and thrive in future generations. This is a rising tides approach for humans Musk has also signaled clearly against unnatural life extensions.
“I certainly would like to maintain health for a longer period of time,” Musk told Insider. “But I am not afraid of dying. I think it would come as a relief.”
and
"Increasing quality of life for the aged is important, but increased lifespan, especially if cognitive impairment is not addressed, is not good for civilization."
Now, there is plenty, that I as a conservative, Christian, and Luddish would readily fault in Musk (e.g. his affairs and divorces). But from this perspective Musk certainly has large overlap with a traditionally "ordered" view of civilization and human flourishing.
Altman, on the other hand has no children, and as a gay man, never will have children inside of a traditional framework (yes I am aware many (all?) of Musks own children were IVF. I am no Musk fanboy).
I certainly hope this is just my bias showing, but I have greater fear for Altman types running the show than Musks because they are a few extra steps removed from stake in future civilization. We know that Musk wants to preserve humanity for his children and his grandchildren. Can we be sure that's anymore than an abstract good for Altman?
I'd rather put my faith in Musks own "selfish" genes at the cost of knowing most of my descendants will eventually be his too than in a bachelor, not driven by fecund sexual biology, doing cool tech.
Every child Musk pops out is more the tightly intermingled his genetic future is with the rest of humanity's.
In Yud's oped, which I frankly think contains a lot of hysteria, mixed among a few decent points, he says this:
I'm unclear whether this is Yud's bio-kid or a step kid, but the point ressonates with my perspective of Elon Musk. A few days ago SA indicated a similar thing about a hypothetical kid(?)
In either case, I don't know about AI x-risk. I am much more worried about 2cimerafa's economic collapse risk. But in both scenarios I am increasingly of a perspective that I'll cheekily describe as "You shouldn't get to have a decision on AI development unless you have young children". You don't have enough stake.
I have growing distrust of those of you without bio-children eager or indifferent to building a successor race or exhaulting yourself through immortal transhumanist fancies.
I'll call your 'don't get a say on AI development unless you have young children' and raise you 'you don't get to have a say on abortion unless you have a uterus' or 'you don't get a say in gun control unless you own an AR-15' or 'you don't get a say in our adventures overseas unless you serve(d) in the military.'
What's the general principle you want to employ here, and if you want to restrict it to certain use-cases, what's your rationale? In theory we should all have a say in all aspects of how our society is run. Maybe in practice we don't want the specifics of highly technical questions like the storage of nuclear waste to be decided by referenda, but self-determination and broad involvement of the populace in moral questions seems to be a fundamental value of the western political tradition.
I think two of your analogies would be better formulated here to be more, well, analogous to the OP:
-"If you live in a gated community with quick police response, you shouldn't push so hard for gun control."
-"If you had a son who was eligible to be drafted into the military, would you support military intervention as eagerly as you do?"
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You're taking what was explicitly called out as a cheeky framing of what is more of a heuristic for why I trust Musk more than Altman, people with kids more than single people when talking about the future of civilization and asking me to generalize it into a principle. But sure let's play with it.
All three of your examples are Mad-libs fallacies, they are written the same way, but actually point at the opposite of my argument (if taken as a 'principle)
'you don't get to have a say on abortion unless you have a uterus'
'you don't get a say in gun control unless you own an AR-15'
'you don't get a say in our adventures overseas unless you serve(d) in the military.'
The more accurate analogy that fits with your examples is something like "You don't get a say on AI, unless you are working on AI" or own a LLM or something
But again, that is very far away from what I said. None of those examples are formulated to capture what I was talking about. They all angle at direct experience in the subject, with the partial exception of the abortion one, but that will quickly develop into an abortion debate.
Your examples are of agency in the policy based on exposure to the tools, while mine was agency based on effects of the outcomes. Again the abortion one only follows if you argue that the baby isn't a party with exposure.
So this is the part that I disagree, and my first round on the Motte helped disabuse me of. AI risk is a good example of where this kind of libertarian ethic breaks down.
My "general principle" looks something like this, but it's really a heuristic not a principle
If you are farming the commons, appeals to axiomatic autonomy and unlimited self-determination are weak.
EVERYTHING you do is farming the commons, though unequally weighted.
The more something farms the commons, the more it should be determined by those who's commons are affected than by the farmer's desires.
Something about how, if you extend this to longtermism, you've gone to far.
And you wrote a meandering post that went through Yudkowsky, Musk and Altman to conclude with being more concerned about economics than x-risk and why you and yours with children should have a say with regards to the future while those of us with 'transhumanist fancies' instead of children should not. Can you blame me for focusing on the only sentence in your post that was bolded when trying to distill a thesis?
I mean, I'm assuming there's some kind of framework behind your beliefs. You don't need a generalizable principle, but there needs to be more substance to your argument than "I have children and you don't therefore I decide" if you want to change my mind.
Fine, I'll lay some cards on the table instead of being a pain in the ass.
Reasonable arguments seem to be that people should have a say in the decision-making process if (1) they will be affected by the outcomes or (2) they have significant expertise in the area such that we think they'll make better choices than average Joe. I can imagine arguing for a flat system ('one person one vote') or a technocracy (decisions made by committees of experts) and our society falling in between.
Example (i), abortion: Women will obviously be affected by the outcome of the abortion discussion to a greater extent than men. Certain people would argue that they also know more about it than men (I can vouch that my female friends with children are certainly more intimate with the details of pregnancy, childbirth and nursing than their husbands) but that's a rabbit hole I'd probably rather avoid so you can strike it from the record if you like.
Example (ii), guns: AR-15 owners are obviously affected by the outcome of gun control regulation (confiscation of their arms) and arguably more knowledgeable about at least the mechanics of shooting and gun ownership.
Example (iii), military: Active military obviously have more of a stake in foreign policy decisions given that they'll be the boots on the ground, and seem highly likely to know more about the military and foreign engagements than your average civilian.
So no, I disagree with this statement:
Each of those examples has a stakeholder that will be deeply personally affected by the policies in addition to having more (as you put it) direct experience with the subject than the average person.
Perhaps I misspoke by saying 'self-determination.' A say in the direction of the community and nation-state in which they live may be more accurate.
Can you explain what you mean by farms the commons, and concretely what that refers to in this case? It carries connotations of private enterprise benefiting from subsidies or avoiding dealing with the externalities of their actions, but I assume that's not what you're going for here.
I think this splits too quickly into a discussion about principled views that I would be happy to have under separate cover. I'd rather revert to my only real point that, as a parent the concerns of other parents about their children is a force of commonality and a potential for alignment. I recognize that in Elon Musk to an extent, and I was surprised to see both Elizier express sentiment that at least the child of a loved one is top of mind for him.
I am of course, aware of the ways appeals to children can be an emotional camel's nose into the tent of control. But my perspective is to ask, why it works and whether that reason is not always wrong.
People with kids, and people with traditional families (neither Elon, nor Elizier have the latter) are going to weigh future planning differently than those without. Am I, someone invested in the survival of the traditional human family wrong to prefer the leaders and those with power over transformative technology to share my experiences and values?
Generally speaking I want leaders and decision makers and people with power to share my values (as does everyone everywhere all the time. Just because the liberal's values are liberalism, doesn't mean that their desire for leaders to prioritize liberalism isn't the same exact impulse). AI is not an exception to that, and might be, rather the most extreme case in my lifetime.
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