You handwave too much, and the people who already accept premise
Or the people who understand the mathematics.
Cousin_it's mathematics is correct, if counter-intuitive to those not used to thinking about quines. Whether it implies what he thinks it implies is a separate question as I discuss here.
Well, I assumed that he was building an AGI, and even agreed that it is entirely possible to rig the AI so that something the AI does inside a sim, gets replicated in the outside world. I even gave example: you make narrow AI that generates a virus mostly by simulated molecular interactions (and has some sim of the human immune system, people's response to the world events, what WHO might do, and such) and wire it up to a virus making lab that can vent it's produce into the air in the building or something edit: or best yet one that can mail samples to wha...
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.