One of the most annoying arguments when discussing AI is the perennial "But if the AI is so smart, why won't it figure out the right thing to do anyway?" It's often the ultimate curiosity stopper.
Nick Bostrom has defined the "Orthogonality thesis" as the principle that motivation and intelligence are essentially unrelated: superintelligences can have nearly any type of motivation (at least, nearly any utility function-bases motivation). We're trying to get some rigorous papers out so that when that question comes up, we can point people to standard, and published, arguments. Nick has had a paper accepted that points out the orthogonality thesis is compatible with a lot of philosophical positions that would seem to contradict it.
I'm hoping to complement this with a paper laying out the positive arguments in favour of the thesis. So I'm asking you for your strongest arguments for (or against) the orthogonality thesis. Think of trying to convince a conservative philosopher who's caught a bad case of moral realism - what would you say to them?
Many thanks! Karma and acknowledgements will shower on the best suggestions, and many puppies will be happy.
1) The default case is that AGI will neither be malevolent nor benevolent but will simply have no appreciation of human values and therefore does not care to protect them.
2) An AGI is likely to become more powerful than humans at some point. Given #1, such a being poses a danger.
3) Given #1,2, we have to figure out how to make AGI that does protect humans and humane values.
4) Human moral value is very complex and it is therefore extremely difficult to approach #3, but worth trying given the associated risks.
yada-yada-yada
You know what's your problem? You and other risks from AI advocates are only talking to people with the same mindset or people who already share most of your assumptions.
Stop that. Go and talk to actual AI researchers. Or talk to Timothy Gowers, Holden Karnofsky etc.
See what actual experts, world-class mathematicians or even neuroscientists have to say. I have done it. If you can convince them then your arguments are strong. Otherwise you might just be fooling yourself.
Well said. Or, at least a good start.
Oh. Was the earlier part supposed to be satire?