amcknight comments on General purpose intelligence: arguing the Orthogonality thesis - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 15 May 2012 10:23AM

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Comment author: JGWeissman 16 May 2012 05:13:20PM 2 points [-]

If an agent with goal G1 acquires sufficient "philosophical ability", that it concludes that goal G is the right goal to have, that means that it decided that the best way to achieve goal G1 is to pursue goal G. For that to happen, I find it unlikely that goal G is anything other than a clarification of goal G1 in light of some confusion revealed by the "philosophical ability", and I find it extremely unlikely that there is some universal goal G that works for any goal G1.

Comment author: amcknight 16 May 2012 10:22:17PM 0 points [-]

Let me try to strengthen your point. If an agent with goal G1 acquires sufficient "philosophical ability", that it concludes that goal G is the right goal to have, that means that it decided that the best way to achieve goal G1 is to pursue what it thinks is the "right goal to have". This would require it to take a kind of normative stance on goal fulfillment, which would require it to have normative machinery, which would need to be implemented in the agents mind. Is it impossible to create an agent without normative machinery of this kind? Does philosophical ability depend directly on normative machinery?