I doubt human value is particularly fragile. Human value has evolved and morphed over time and will continue to do so. It already takes multiple different forms. It will likely evolve in future in coordination with AGI and other technology. I think it's fairly robust.
Like Ben, I think it is ok (if not ideal) if our descendants' values deviate from ours, as ours have from our ancestors. The risks of attempting a world government anytime soon to prevent this outcome seem worse overall.
We all know the problem with deathism: a strong belief that death is almost impossible to avoid, clashing with undesirability of the outcome, leads people to rationalize either the illusory nature of death (afterlife memes), or desirability of death (deathism proper). But of course the claims are separate, and shouldn't influence each other.
Change in values of the future agents, however sudden of gradual, means that the Future (the whole freackin' Future!) won't be optimized according to our values, won't be anywhere as good as it could've been otherwise. It's easier to see a sudden change as morally relevant, and easier to rationalize gradual development as morally "business as usual", but if we look at the end result, the risks of value drift are the same. And it is difficult to make it so that the future is optimized: to stop uncontrolled "evolution" of value (value drift) or recover more of astronomical waste.
Regardless of difficulty of the challenge, it's NOT OK to lose the Future. The loss might prove impossible to avert, but still it's not OK, the value judgment cares not for feasibility of its desire. Let's not succumb to the deathist pattern and lose the battle before it's done. Have the courage and rationality to admit that the loss is real, even if it's too great for mere human emotions to express.
I feel like I remember trying to answer the same question (asked by you) before, but essentially, the answer is that (1) eventually (assuming humanity survives long enough) someone is probably going to build one anyway, probably without being extremely careful about understanding what kind of optimizer it's goint to be, and getting FAI before then will probably be the only way to prevent it; (2) there are many reasons why humanity might not survive long enough for that to happen — it's likely that humanity's technological progress over the next century will continuously lower the amount of skill, intelligence, and resources needed to accidentally or intentionally do terrible things — and getting FAI before then may be the best long-term solution to that; (3) given that pursuing FAI is likely necessary to avert other huge risks, and is therefore less risky than doing nothing, it's an especially good cause considering that it subsumes all other humanitarian causes (if executed successfully).
Perhaps you did. This time, my question was mostly rhetorical, but since you gave a thoughtful response, it seems a shame to waste it.
Uh. Prevent it how. I'm curious how that particular sausage will be made.
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