ChrisA comments on Fake Selfishness - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 November 2007 02:31AM

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Comment author: ChrisA 10 November 2007 09:52:17AM 0 points [-]

The question Eliezer raises is the first problem any religious person has to face once he abandons the god thesis, i.e. why should I be good now? The answer, I believe, is that you cannot act contrary to your genetic nature. Our brains are wired (or have modules in Pinker terms) for various forms of altruism, for group survival reasons probably. I therefore can’t easily commit acts against my genetic nature, even if intellectually I can see they are in my best interests. (As Eliezer has already recognised this is why AI or uploaded personalities are so dangerous; they will be able to rewrite the brain code that prevents widespread selfishness. I say dangerous of course, because likely the first uploaded person or AI will not be me, so they will be a threat to me.)

More simply, the reason I don't steal from people is not that stealing is wrong, but that my genetic programming (perhaps also an element of social conditioning) is such that I don’t want to steal, or have an active non-intellectual aversion to stealing.

Why do I try to convince you of this point of view if I am intellectually convinced that I should be selfish? I agree with Robin, it is because I am gentically programmed to do so, probably related to status seeking. Also, I genuinely would like to hear arguments againt this point of view, in case I am wrong.

Eliezer, genetics as a source of our ethical actions mean that it is unlikely we can ever develop a consistent ethical theory, if you accept this does this not present a big problem for your attempt to create an ethical AI? Is it possible your rejection of this approach to ethics and your attempt to prove a standalone moral system is perhaps subconciously driven by the impact this would have on your work?