I don't know what thinking about X will do to me. So either I never attempt to self improve, or I take a chance.
Well, yes, if said moral truth is obvious in something an AI to young to your to realize the danger is likely to stumble upon by mistake. This doesn't seem all that likely, and if the AI isn't inescapably snared by the time it gets to realizing as much as we already have, then it can still sandbox any process that's exploring new arguments in any way relating to morality and shut them down if they show any sign of shifting values.
We know our level of intelligence is reachable while still disagreeing about morality, and especially after having read these posts it could easily implement failsafes like that at even lower levels.
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.