The AI reasons with its map, the map of the world. The map depicts events that happen in the world outside of AI, and it also depicts the events that happen to the AI, or to AI's map of the world. In AI's map, an event in the world and AI map's picture of that event are different elements, just as they are different elements of the world itself. The goal that guides AI's choice of action can then distinguish between an event in the world and AI map's representation of that event, because these two events are separately depicted in its map.
Can it however distinguish between two different events in the world that result in same map state?
edit: here, example for you. For you, some person you care about, has same place in map even though the atoms get replaced etc. If that person gets ill, you may want to mind upload that person, into an indistinguishable robot body, right? You'll probably argue that it is a valid solution to escaping death. A lot of people have different map, and they will argue that you're just making a substitute for your own sake, as the person will be dead, gone forever. S...
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.