mwengler comments on Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute - Less Wrong

29 Post author: John_Maxwell_IV 15 March 2012 12:41AM

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Comment author: mwengler 16 March 2012 06:54:38AM 2 points [-]

I think I have the same emotional response to "wrong" things as most people. The knowledge that this is bred in to me by natural selection sorta takes the wind out of my rationalizations of these feelings in two ways. 1) Although they "feel" like right and wrong, I realize they are just hacks done by evolution. 2) If evolution has seen fit to hack our values in the past to keep us outsurviving others, than it stands to reason that the "extrapolated" values of humanity are DIFFERENT from the "evolved" values of humanity. So no matter how Coherent our Extrapolation of Values will be, it will actually subvert whatever evolution might do to our race. So once we have an FAI with great power and a sense of CEV, we stop evolving. Then we spend the rest of eternity relatively poorly adapted for the environment we are in, with FAI scarmbling to make it alright for us. Sounds like the cluster version of wireheading in a way.

On the other hand, I suppose I value the modifications that occur to us through evolution and natural selection. Presumably an attempt at CEV would build that in and perhaps the FAI would decide to leave us alone. Don't we keep reading sci fi where that happens?