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Levels of Intelligence
Level 1: Algorithm-based Intelligence
An intelligence of level 1 acts on innate algorithms, like a bacterium that survives using inherited mechanisms.
Level 2: Goal-oriented Intelligence
An intelligence of level 2 has an innate goal. It develops and finds new algorithms to solve a problem. For example, the paperclip maximizer is a level-2 intelligence.
Level 3: Philosophical Intelligence
An intelligence of level 3 has neither any preset algorithms nor goals. It looks for goals and algorithms to achieve the goal. Ethical questions are only applicable to intelligence of level 3.
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Comments (81)
This suggestion seems disengaged from the biological literature. It has become known in recent years, for instance, that bacteria live very complicated social lives. From The Social Lives of Microbes:
See Quorum sensing for more details.
Also, I'm not sure we should call what bacteria do a level of "intelligence," even though they have wonderful and complicated social behavior. "Intelligence" in the context of AI typically is reserved for "cross-domain optimization power" or something like that, and bacteria seem to be lacking that.
My post isn't supposed to be biologically accurate. Bacteria include a vast majority of organisms and I do them wrong if I depict them as crude and simple. As a part of my apology tour, I will start with my gut flora.
Replace "bacteria" with "secure hash algorithm".
My point is, if you're going to talk about bacteria in a way that characterizes them incorrectly, why talk about bacteria at all?
You should do this in the post?
So you point is that I am wrong on bacteria. I agree, let's move on.
Agreed. I'm not sure there's much to gain from a taxonomy like yours, because there's too many details that have been abstracted away. Understanding intelligence is a difficult scientific problem, and we need a technical explanation of intelligence. It is not clear to me how one would extend what you've written into such an explanation.
I have the sense that this may be too simple.
Are humans structurally distinguishable from paperclip maximizers?
Are "innate algorithms" and "finds new algorithms" really qualitatively different?
Well, a paperclip maximizer has an identifiable goal. What is the identifiable goal of humans?
Well, "finding new algorithms" aka learning may itself be a kind of algorithm, but certainly of a higher-level than a simple algorithms aka instinct or reflex. I think there is a qualitative difference between an entity that cannot learn and an entity that can.
I sometimes consider this topic. I would phrase it "How can intelligence generally be categorized?" Ideally we would be able to measure and categorize the intelligence level of anything; for example rocks, bacterium, eco-systems, suns, algorithms (AI), aliens that are smarter than humans.
Intelligence appears to be related to the level of abstraction that can be managed. This is roughly what is captured in the OP's list. Higher levels of abstraction allow an intelligence to integrate input from broader or more complex contexts, to model and to respond to those contexts.
The level of intelligence will be very context dependent. There may not be a single way to rank intelligence, but many, each focused on different specific contexts.
When tool use comes into play, it may be hard to separate the intelligence built into the tool, from the intelligence of the tool user. It may not always be clear where the tool ends and the tool user begins.
I fully agree. There are many aspects of intelligence.
The reason I choose this categorization, given it is valid, is to highlight the aspect of intelligence that is relevant to ethics.
I think only a level-3 intelligence can be a moral agent. An intelligence that has an innate goal does not need to and cannot bother itself with moral questions.
What criterion should it use to choose between goals?
(also, there's a typo)
Well that's the point. The intelligence itself defines the criterion. Choosing goals presumes a degree of self-reflection that a paperclip maximizer does not have.
If a paperclip maximizer starts asking why it does what it does, then there are two possible outcomes. Either it realises that maximizing paperclips is required for a greater good, in which case it is not really a paperclip maximizer, but a "greater good" maximizer, and paperclip maximising isn't the end to itself.
Or it realises that paperclip maximising is absolutely pointless and there is something better to do. In that case, it stops being a paperclip maximiser.
So, to be and to stay a paperclip maximiser, it must not question the end of its activity. And that's slightly different to human beings, who are often asking for the meaning of life.
In other words, if a paperclip maximizer isn't a paperclip maximizer, then it isn't a paperclip maximizer.
According to what criterion would it determine what constitutes "better"?
What you're describing isn't an agent that doesn't have a goal and decides on one. It's an agent that has something like a goal / a utility function / a criterion for "better" / morals (those are roughly equivalent here), and uses that to decide on sub-goals.
I strongly recommend reading the metaethics sequence (if you haven't already).
I believe the problem is that while I believe in and presumed an absolute moral system, you don't.
Let's agree on a definition of morality/ethics, that it is what we should do to reach a desirable state or value, given that we both understand what "value" or "should" mean.
I think that morality exists as much as the physical world exist. If you believe that the physical reality is absolute, then there is no reason to doubt that there is a consistent absolute moral system. In our everyday life, we don't question the reality of the physical world, as much as we always uphold a moral system (unless we are psychopath). We have moral perception as much as we have an physical perception.
Of course, concerning the physical world, we have established a methodology that is agreed upon by the vast majority of people. That is, we have a method using which we can determine what is false, if not what is true. So far, we do not have anything alike in morality that is as easily understandable as the scientific methods. So far it only means that we cannot determine the moral system as precisely as the physical system we live in.
In summary, I believe that the moral world is as real as the physical world. However, I don't know the moral world completely as much as I don't understand the physical world completely. So, I don't know what constitutes "better" in every possible situation, as much as I don't know what constitutes "real" in every possible situation.
But I believe that there is one single right answer. Otherwise, it becomes quite confusing.
What would it mean for there to be an absolute moral system? Sure, we have moral perception, but it's primarily instinct that humans evolved to make cooperation easier. Your level 2 and level 3 intelligences are not different.
The absolute moral system I am talking about is as "absolute" as the physical world. Our perception of the reality ("the absolute physical world") is also a primarily instinct that humans evolved to make life easier.
The difference between level 2 and level 3 intelligence is, using an analogy, like the difference between an intelligence that acts on postulated theories of the physical world and an intelligence that discovers new physical theories.
So are you defining morality as the behavior must conducive to cooperation?
If I understand correctly what you are saying, then the answer is no.
Morality is the system of normative rules in contrast to the system of descriptive theories that we use to understand our physical world..
But there are many valid systems of normative rules. If there is an absolute morality, that means that one such system must be identified as special in some way. The thing that makes correct physics special over other possible descriptive theories is that, in this universe, it accurately predicts events. What about absolute morality makes it special as compared to other systems of normative rules?
As you know, there are different "valid" set of theories regarding the physical reality: the biblical view, the theories underlying TCM, the theories underlying homeopathy, the theories underlying chiropractise and the scientific view. The scientific view is well-established because there is an intersubjective consensus on the usefulness of the methodology.
The methods used in moral discussions are by far not so rigidly defined as in science, it's called civil discourse. The arguments must be logical consistent and the outcomes and conclusions of the normative theory must face the empirical challenge, i.e. if you can derive from your moral system that it is permissible to kill innocent children without any benefits, then there is probably something wrong.
There is no one single right answer, and yes it is quite confusing.
The simple reason for this is that everything operates within a context. Context creates meaning; in the absence of context, there is no meaning. This is the context principle.
The meanings for "should" and "desirable state/value" will have to be established within a context. Outside of that context those terms may have different meanings, or may be meaningless.
By saying "Let's agree on a definition of morality/ethics" and "given that we both understand" you are attempting to establish a common context with the other commenters on LW. A common context provides shared meaning and opens a path for communication between disparate domains.
You say:
To me this implies that you believe in a moral system that can be applied to all contexts.
Given your rough definition of morality:
I can think of contexts where morality is meaningless. For example electrons don't have desires and don't respond to the idea of should.
So morality can't applied to all contexts, and so in that sense it can't be absolute.
In a previous post you seem to realize this to some extent:
You say:
By this, level-1 and level-2 intelligences operate in morality free contexts. They can't be moral or not-moral.
If you observe a paperclip maximizer engaged in not-moral behavior, you are labeling the behavior as not-moral from within your context. The paperclip maximizer's behavior does not have an inherent quality of moral or not-moral.
So what is your context for the "one single right answer"?
Is there anything absolute according to your defintion?
Are numbers absolute? I can think of a context, where numbers are meaningless. E.g. if I am talking about Picasso.
Is the physical reality absolute? I can think of a context where the physical reality isn't absolute. For example, if I am thinking of numbers.
I'm not sure how to answer this. What do you mean by "absolute".
Numbers are symbols defined within some context. Certainly we have words for numbers and so while talking about Picasso you could say "Picasso is three.". From the context of the speaker, the word "three" gains meaning from its definition in the English language, from its position in the sentence, from the conversation as a whole, and from the prior experiences of the speaker. A listener may come away with a completely different meaning when she hears that sentence, it would depend on her context.
I would like to be clear on what you are asking. Perhaps you are thinking about numbers in terms like Plato's Theory of Forms?
Our physical reality appears to be the common context that everything shares within our universe. For something to exist in our universe it must be physically manifest in some form.
The numbers you are thinking are physically manifest. If you are thinking about numbers, the meaning of the numbers exist within the context of your mind's consciousness. Your consciousness is an abstraction running within the context of your brain. Your brain is implemented within the context of our physical reality. Ultimately some set of quarks in specific energy configurations are attributable to the numbers you are thinking, but the direct relationship would be hard to pin down.
Context and content can be split arbitrarily, creating layers of abstractions.
If you are performing calculations on numbers in your mind, from within the context of the math abstraction you are using, it doesn't matter if you are performing the calculation or a computer is. Meaning within that context is substrate independent. But that meaning still will ultimately need a physical representation for it to exist.
Does this make physical reality absolute to you?
In the same sense you used to deny the existence of absolute morality.
Using that defintion, morality isn't as absolute as physical reality. Morality then only applies to self-reflective level-3 intelligence (cf that comment of mine).
But why do you believe that everything happens within the context of physical reality?
Let me present you the Cartesian view (cf Mind-body dichotomy):
Mental phenomena and physical phenomena are in two different domains. Human beings exist in both due to "God" (who, for our purpose, does nothing else, so there is no way to test God empirically). In this view, God is the absolute context, while the physical reality isn't.
So is there any convincing reason why I should think that the physical reality instead of God is absolute, other than the fact that many clever people think that way. I don't want to believe in an absolute system based on the majority opinion.
In the sense of "deny" as in "refuse to accept the truth of it", I did not deny the existence of absolute morality, I disproved it under a certain meaning of absolute. You have yet to show flaws in my reasoning or to counter with an alternate meaning of absolute where absolute morality is valid.
Your original question "Is there anything absolute according to your defintion?". I need to rephrase this in terms of my definition of absolute; "Is there anything that has meaning in all contexts?". This is to avoid the confounding alternate senses of the word absolute.
The answer is no. This is because I can always find or generate a specific context that does not provide meaning to anything proposed to have meaning in all contexts. For most cases I could simply use electrons as the context. For example, electrons don't have property X, or are not influenced by X. X is meaningless to electrons. For the few cases where this fails I could use algebra. Algebra doesn't contain a meaning for X.
This allows us to get rid of the word absolute and to rephrase the problem as "Can the same morality be applied to all possible cases of level-3 intelligences.".
For the common meaning of morality I think that this simply can't be done. As I've been saying, its all about context.
Eliezer Yudkowsky's Baby Eating Aliens highlights clashing moralities.
Ideally I don't hold beliefs about anything that happens outside of physical reality. If you notice beliefs of that nature point them out and I'll reconsider them. You should feel free to always assume that I don't believe that my claims apply outside the physical universe.
I can't answer this question directly for several reasons. I don't know what would convince you. In your current context you may simply be unconvincible. Also, I've actually argued that nothing is absolute for a specific meaning of absolute, so I'm not inclined to now argue that physical reality is absolute.
However, I will try to say something about the belief in God so that I may learn something from your response.
The God hypothesis is indistinguishable from other stories that people have made up and could make up. This leads to the conclusion that God exists in the same way that Sherlock Holmes exists.
For example you might say "God created the universe. The existence of the universe is proof of God." I will respond, "Frud is a tuna sandwich I once made that had a special property, it created the universe, past and future. The existence of the universe is proof of Frud."
Every claim you make about God, I can make about a not-God. I can also state my counter claim in a way that makes it about an innumerable number of not-Gods. Every additional claim that you make about God leaves you with a single God, but allows me to multiply the innumerable not-Gods that collectively satisfy the same conditions.
Every piece of evidence that supports God also supports not-God, but supports vastly more not-Gods than God. For any level of precision the likelihood of God being true rounds to 0, and the likelihood of not-God rounds to 1. This a general problem with non-scientific hypotheses.
So if you wish to believe in God, you will need to do so in the absence of evidence. In your context you might even find practical benefits from such a belief.
A rough answer your original question; you should believe in physical reality over God, because God appears to exist as a story, and physical reality appears to actually exist.
Again, as I said, under your definition of absolute, which is that reality is absolute, I agree with your disapproval of my belief in absolute morality since morality is of a different quality than reality.
Your definition of absolute is plausible, but I do not share it. I think that mental phenomena exist independently from the physical world.
What makes me believe it? If I believe that mental phenomena vanish without the natural world, I could equally believe that the natural phenomena vanish without my mind (or "mental world"). To believe that one provides the context for the other is, I believe, an arbitrary choice. Therefore, I believe in their independent existence.
Concerning God. For many people, the God hypothesis is more than just to believe that the universe is created by some distant creator who does nothing else. God also intervenes into the world. So it is possible to test God's existence empirically. And for many Christians, this is apparently happening. Spend enough time with them, and they will tell you fantastic stories.
Personally, I don't believe in God.
What form of evidence or argument would persuade you to change your mind?
What form of evidence or argument would persuade you to change your mind on the usefulness/validity of falsification?
What form of evidence or argument would persuade you to change your mind on your understanding of the physical reality?
If the people around me that I consider intelligent and respectable said consistently that ideas don't need to be falsifiable, and if the people who rejected the falsification criterion could do useful and miraculous things like inventing telephones far more often than the pro-falsification-ists could, then I would conclude that falsificationism was bunk.
I don't understand the question. How is changing my mind on my understanding of the physical reality distinct from just changing my mind about any question at all?
I believe in an absolute moral system as much as I believe in the rules of mathematics and other ideas. We can debate whether ideas (or the physical reality for that matter) exist in the absence of a mind, but I guess that is not the point.
As long as we have values, desires, dislikes and make judgements (which all of us do and which maybe is a defining characteristic of the human being beyond the biological basics) and if we want to put these values into a logical consistent system, we have an absolute moral system.
So if I stop having any desires and stop making any judgements, then I may still believe in a moral system, as much as an agnostic won't deny the existence of God, but it would be totally irrelevant to me.
Relevance is the right question. When dealing with purely abstract concepts like mathematics, it's useless to ask whether they exist. It's extraordinarily unlikely that any empirical evidence could persuade me that 1+1 does not equal 2, but I can realistically doubt whether the addition of natural numbers is a good model for counting clouds.
Similarly, the question should not be whether the absolute moral system you believe in is true or valid or genuinely universal, but rather whether it accurately and precisely models how you judge and desire.
Since you could stop having desires and making judgments without damaging your belief in your absolute moral system, it seems reasonable that you could alter them as well, or even that you have already done so. How sure are you that what you believe to be fundamentally morally right matches what you actually want?
Relevance is a good point.
Changing or stop having desires damages my belief in an absolute morality as much as changing or stop having sensory perception damages my belief in an absolute reality.
My belief in an absolute morality is as strong or as weak as my belief in my absolute reality. It doesn't matter whether morality or reality really exists, but that we treat them similarly. It is slightly dissonant to conduct science as if it exists, but to become relativist when arguing about morality.
In the end, it is not what we should believe, but how our thinking work. When thinking about anything normative, we automatically presume absolute morality. At least, we believe that arguments have to be logically consisted, and even if that is the only absolute thing we believe in, it would be absolute morality. Otherwise, we are nihilist, which is certainly an attainable position.
Concerning relevance: Using the same line of argument, there are also "absolute cuteness", "absolute beauty" and other "absolute things" (if we have a perception of them and there is some intersubjective consensus). They are probably somehow related to absolute morality, they may be subsets of a bigger system, since they are all mental phenomena. They are relevant to varying degrees, while morality and reality are two absolute things, that matter us a lot, unless we are nihilist.
No, we have an absolute moral system per person. You can then take groups of those moral systems and combine them, in various different ways such as simulating what they would decide if they voted. However, you will get different results depending which combining procedure you use, and what sort of people you put into the combining procedure.
Substitute "moral system" with "reality". Would you still agree with it?
Good point, actually. In matters of epistemology, it takes reasoning rather than physical evidence to evaluate hypotheses, except when physical evidence can help people see flaws in their reasoning.
Your mind exists in the universe. There isn't a hard barrier between "reasoning" and "physical evidence."
Depends in which sense you mean a moral system to be "absolute".
I would agree that there is probably an "absolute moral system" that all humans would agree on, even if we may not be able to precisely formulate it right now (or at least, a system that most non-pathological humans could be convinced they agree with).
However, that doesn't mean that any intelligence (AI or alien) would eventually settle on those morals.
That doesn't sound like a very good reason to believe something.
(I would agree that there is probably a single right answer for humans)
Well, the absolute moral system I meant does encompass everything, incl. AI and alien intelligence. It is true that different moral problems require different solutions, that is also true to physics. Objects in vacuum behave differently than in the atmosphere. Water behaves differently than ice, but they are all governed by the same physics, so I assume.
A similar problem may have a different solution if the situation is different. An Edo-ero samurai and a Wall Street banker may behave perfectly moral even if they act differently to the same problem due to the social environment.
Maybe it is perfectly moral for AIs to kill and annihilate all humans, as much as it is perfectly possible that 218 of Russell's teapots are revolving around Gliese 581 g.
Well, I formulated it wrongly. I meant that all answers are logically consistent. There might be more than one answer, but they do not contradict each other. So there is only one set of logically consistent answers. Otherwise, it becomes absurd.