Ati comments on The Strangest Thing An AI Could Tell You - Less Wrong

81 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 July 2009 02:27AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 08 April 2012 02:59:42AM *  2 points [-]

I... honestly can't tell you. Sorry. Realistically, I probably shouldn't have mentioned it, even somewhat anonymously.

EDIT: Also for the record, the only reason it's still a consideration is because it occurred to me that I could donate the proceeds to charity, and have it come out positive, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint. But I gave up on naive utilitarianism a while ago. So now I just don't know.

EDIT #2: Either way, still contradictory evidence to the original hypothesis.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 April 2012 03:19:16PM *  4 points [-]

Well... for people who say they don't anticipate ever actually finding themselves in trolley problems, I'd say I don't think it's that hard to find someone willing to give you $10,000 to murder someone and then give the money to the Against Malaria Foundation.

(No, I wouldn't do that, even if I think the (CDT) expected utility of that would be positive: ethical injunctions and all that, plus a suspect that the net RDT consequences of precommitting to never do contract killing would be positive.)

Comment author: [deleted] 08 April 2012 05:15:54PM 3 points [-]

Okay, now how about you're not directly involved in the killing in any way? You just make it easier for other people to do the killing. I guess a good analogy is that you invent a firearm or a poison that cannot be used in self-defense, and can only be used for murder. What do the ethics of selling it openly look like?

Comment author: faul_sname 13 November 2012 06:41:49AM 5 points [-]

A military-industrial complex. That's what it looks like.