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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 have a permanent and maximal distrust of people with poor arguments that boil down to them being more entitled to make decisions about political matters because of whatever they think is important about their life and beliefs.
If you, as a parent, can be short-circuited with some Machiavellian «think of the children» pandering to support illiberal policies (as always happens with e.g. encryption – «Secret chats they say, now what if your child were sexually exploited, eh? wouldn't like that, huh!?»), this is reason to dismiss your opinions, not the other way around. If Yud (childless afaik) thinks he gets to decide for humanity because he's a «decision theorist» and very high IQ, that's retarded as well – he has to actually argue his case. Effective altruists claim to have a stake in quintillions of future humans, far beyond what you say. And they, too, have to do their homework and bring persuasive arguments to the table.
This is just the basic premise of a democracy. Loudly proclaiming your values is at most a rallying cry, it doesn't automatically convince anyone not yet convinced. A Chechen clan elder, a fast-breeding African billionaire with dynastic ambitions, an Orthodox Jew who dreams of the Messianic age for all of Israel, a gay atheist Jew tech bro who doesn't want to die ever, a Germanic trans activist running a deranged intentional community with the goal to liberate the trans-proletariat worldwide, a Russian immortalist who thinks death is the crime of gods and must be undone in general – any and all of them can claim to have a uniquely legitimate stake in the future. You disqualify some kinds of stakes using ad hominems stemming from your values and instincts – «unnatural», «fancies» and so on… mere rhetoric. You can be dunked on just as well with similar ad hominems. By the way, for a Christian, you are a tad too clannish and evolutionarily minded in your outlook; is this a dissident right thing or what? Do you only care about fertile members of your immediate family, God's man?
What you say is just so much special pleading. It's not clear why you have a stake in the health of the whole polity, sans contingent factors; clearly your value system, as described, allows to turn the society to shit so long as your own descendants – mixed with Musk's powerful seed, I guess – prosper through it. When having to choose, you'd go the way of Lot rather than try fixing Sodom, would you not? And while in Sodom, you'd rather build a tall fence and exploit the degenerates around, funneling wealth into your children's futures.
At least, why should anyone expect otherwise after this post?
I don't trust Altman, I don't trust Yud, and I don't trust you for the exact same reason. You cannot be bothered to obscure the self-serving, gratuitously unprincipled nature of your words.
P.S. I'm pretty sure there's no evidence that people with children act like they have more of a general stake in the future of the group/nation/humanity, beyond the trivial and narrowly nepotistic sense; if there is a difference in some society, this might be explained by self-selection, but then the dysgenic trend suggests we could see a negative correlation, if anything. I can't find the studies, though, and they're probably trash anyway. metaphor.systems should help if you're interested.
If you don't have children and want to become a transhumanist immortal being, you shouldn't trust me (hypothetically. In reality, I have no power or agency and wouldn't make enemies over something I can't control).
Self-serving? of course! So are all of your positions. Look I like liberal democracy. but I like it because it serves the world well, myself and my family included. The point at which it doesn't I don't have to religiously hold libertarian values.
Unprincipled? Absolutely not. This is a bullshit attack. My principles are based on values you disagree with, My positions which extend from my principles may be extrapolating on faulty data or predictive ability, but they exist. My principles are primarily toward the flourishing of my children and the of the existing human race. I think people with kids also have some extra buy in there. People without kids who want to appeal to democratic ideals, then use that to gamble the future of those with kids are less allied to my worldview.
Now I also have some WEIRD lifestyle preservation impulse. Because I do not come from Russia like you or India like selfmade, I am less inclined to rock the boat of my 'good life'. However, it is my Christian belief that lets me know that this particular self-interest is not morally acceptable past a very limited point. If you told me I could push a button that would preserve my lifestyle but keep the third world in poverty, part of me might like to, but I would not. Is that self-interest somewhat laundered through the 'altruistic' interest of my children. Yeah, and admittedly it becomes dicier there. But your interest in democratic ideals is likewise laundering of your own self-interest as well.
You and ChrisPratt both took the "cheeky" line too literally. I do not actually advocate a policy where only people with children get a stake.
Much more seriously, I am noting that Elon Musk's perceptions and goals about humanity are more readily parsable and agreeable to my POV than a childless technologist. Elon Musk has expressed a lot of views about human concern that I, (perhaps wrongly!) recognize as informed by the worldview of a parent, and that is a comfort against the rhetoric I find coming from a lot of other people. I said in my post that it could even be a product of my own bias, extrapolating too far gets what I called a "cheeky" heuristic, not an actual governance suggestion.
That folks without kids are so immediately hostile to the idea that folks with kids want to put the interest of their kids forward, is one of the biggest redpills against the techno-liberal worldview. I used to find the common argument is such circles that "think of he children is an emotive backdoor to authoritarianism", until I had chidren to think of. That doesn't mean I am an infinite safteyist. But it means I can recognize and reciprocate when other leaders are clearly thinking of the children.
Which I won't, but more due to your rabid tribalism and clear bad faith than these differences. I'll note that I've always wanted to and still hope to have a large traditional family besides living forever as an uplifted human (the question of whether this, combined with my values and probable tolerance for further self-alteration, would initiate a slide into profound non-humanity and disconnect has concerned me since, like, age 6), but that's neither here nor there.
No. If you admit this, you concede that your arguments about «stake» are disingenuous. I do not have to concede anything of this sort.
I also don't worship democracy. The point of my comment about democracy is that there is no agreeable external standard of a «good vision». Everything resolves either with a negotiated consensus or with a power competition that ends in more or less disagreeable and unequal compromises. We don't have power struggles here, so you've got to argue why your offer is better even by the standards of others. Perhaps you can address their higher-order values, showing why your standards allow for those to be satisfied better. Maybe you can offer some concession. Doubling down on asserting that your stuff is gooder and you are gooder is not productive.
Most irritatingly, there's a clever bait and switch with definitions of stake you use.
Here, you claim that your vision advances the common good simply because it is… good. Also aligned with people you agree with and whose satisfaction is more important by your account. So it's a «stake» not in a future where humanity thrives, but in the particular future with a version of thriving you prefer for your internal reasons, in a word – a preference. Okay. Naturally everyone thinks his preferred values are the best, else he'd have abandoned them. But this is just circular. This isn't a serious attempt to persuade: you ask that your collective values be respected (and in practice, you clearly hope to preclude the realization of other values), and if your numbers are sufficient, you demand that they be given supremacy. (You also clearly desire incompatibility – with the presumption your party will come out on top and snuff out others – because you find other visions morally abhorrent, a negative irrespective of contingent factors; you have a stake not simply in the future where baseline humans can peacefully exist, but where others cannot. But that's okay too. Most people this serious about religion are genocidal in their heart of hearts, I think, and for the most part they can behave themselves).
However, in your original comment, you did try to persuade. You argued that your political preferences, and those of other parents, are inherently more deserving of trust because your values and traits, chiefly having children (and wanting yourself and them to die, for whatever reason), give you «a stake» in the common long-term flourishing of humanity: according to this logic, you have skin in the game and it gives you an incentive to make more responsible choices than others, in this context, apparently wrt AI progress. This is how I understand e.g. the following.
I counter that this is bad psychology. Why would Altman (or me, or selfmadehuman, or even fruitier types in my list above) have less of a subjective stake? If he personally intends to be present indefinitely, he totally has a massive stake; we aren't debating whether his plan will work out but simply whether his idea of his stake in the future motivates him to act responsibly to effect less risky outcomes for the common good, in this case lesser odds of a rogue AI wiping out humanity like Eliezer fears (it sounds improbable that a misaligned AI would wipe out everyone but Altman; I'll leave the topic of Altman-aligned omnicidal singleton aside, though it is important in its own right).
Perhaps your brain is overloaded with oxytocine and so you feel that, since Altman doesn't have children like you do, he cannot act seriously: children are obviously (to you) the most valuable existence in the world, more important to you than you are, and Altman is not tethered to anything as important. I can easily believe that Altman cares more about his livelihood than you do about your entire family combined, and thus has a greater «stake». In any case, this is just psychological speculation about the magnitude of perceived value from humanity not getting whacked. I cannot look into your head any more than I can look into Altman's. I could also argue that Christians cannot be serious consequentialists, nor give much of a shit about preventing Apocalypse ≈indefinitely, and their stake is phony since the whole premise of their faith is eternal blissful immortality conditional on faithfulness to some deontological rules; so even Altman with his assumed materialistic egoism is more reliable. I won't, because this is an entirely worthless line of debate.
Can you appreciate the difference and why equivocation between those senses of the stake would irritate?
More mundanely, the society simply respects parents because through their procreation it perpetuates itself (also because this signals some baseline competence, under non-dysgenic conditions at least); and parents are hardwired to egoistically demand a greater share of the common pie – a greater stake, one could say – on behalf of their progeny, cowardly submit to any intimidation when that seems to protect their children, psychotically denigrate, belittle and rip off childless people (who end up feeling irrational shame) and do other silly things. This might be necessary for the system to work and, in fact, I've recommended doubling down on such uncouth behaviors.
Personally I am constitutionally incapable of feeling shame for being correct, though.
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