Yet Another "Rational Approach To Morality & Friendly AI Sequence"

-6 mwaser 06 November 2010 04:30PM

Premise:  There exists a community whose top-most goal is to maximally and fairly fulfill the goals of all of its members.  They are approximately as rational as the 50th percentile of this community.  They politely invite you to join.  You are in no imminent danger.

 

Do you:

  • Join the community with the intent to wholeheartedly serve their goals
  • Join the community with the intent to be a net positive while serving your goals
  • Politely decline with the intent to trade with the community whenever beneficial
  • Politely decline with the intent to avoid the community
  • Join the community with the intent to only do what is in your best interest
  • Politely decline with the intent to ignore the community
  • Join the community with the intent to subvert it to your own interest
  • Enslave the community
  • Destroy the community
  • Ask for more information, please

 

Premise:  The only rational answer given the current information is the last one.

 

What I’m attempting to eventually prove The hypothesis that I'm investigating is whether "Option 2 is the only long-term rational answer". (Yes, this directly challenges several major current premises so my arguments are going to have to be totally clear.  I am fully aware of the rather extensive Metaethics sequence and the vast majority of what it links to and will not intentionally assume any contradictory premises without clear statement and argument.)

 

It might be an interesting and useful exercise for the reader to stop and specify what information they would be looking next for before continuing.  It would be nice if an ordered list could be developed in the comments.

 

Obvious Questions:

 

<Spoiler Alert>

 

 

  1. What happens if I don’t join?
  2. What do you believe that I would find most problematic about joining?
  3. Can I leave the community and, if so, how and what happens then?
  4. What are the definitions of maximal and fairly?
  5. What are the most prominent subgoals?/What are the rules?

 

An apology

12 mwaser 03 November 2010 07:20PM

Ohhhhh.  WOW!  Damn.  Now I feel bad.

I have been acting like a bull in a china shop, been an extremely ungracious guest, and have taken longer than I prefer to realize these things.

My deepest apologies.

My only defenses or mitigating circumstances:
1.  I really didn't get it
2.  My intentions were good

I would like to perform a penance of creating or helping to create a newbie's guide to LessWrong.  Doing so will clarify and consolidate my understanding and hopefully provide a useful community resource in recompense for the above and appreciation for those who took the time to write thoughtful comments.  Obviously, though, doing so will require more patience and help from the community (particularly since I am certainly aware that I have no idea how to calibrate how much, if anything, you actually want to make too easily accessible) -- so this is a also request for that patience and help (and I'm making the assumption that the request will be answered by the replies ;-).

Thanks.

Waser's 3 Goals of Morality

-12 mwaser 02 November 2010 07:12PM

In the spirit of Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics

  1. You should not be selfish
  2. You should not be short-sighted or over-optimize
  3. You should maximize the progress towards and fulfillment of all conscious and willed goals, both in terms of numbers and diversity equally, both yours and those of others equally

It is my contention that Yudkowsky’s CEV converges to the following 3 points:

  1. I want what I want
  2. I recognize my obligatorily gregarious nature; realize that ethics and improving the community is the community’s most rational path towards maximizing the progress towards and fulfillment of everyone’s goals; and realize that to be rational and effective the community should punish anyone who is not being ethical or improving the community (even if the punishment is “merely” withholding help and cooperation)
  3. I shall, therefore, be ethical and improve the community in order to obtain assistance, prevent interference, and most effectively achieve my goals

I further contend that, if this CEV is translated to the 3 Goals above and implemented in a Yudkowskian Benevolent Goal Architecture (BGA), that the result would be a Friendly AI.

It should be noted that evolution and history say that cooperation and ethics are stable attractors while submitting to slavery (when you don’t have to) is not.  This formulation expands Singer’s Circles of Morality as far as they’ll go and tries to eliminate irrational Us-Them distinctions based on anything other than optimizing goals for everyone — the same direction that humanity seems headed in and exactly where current SIAI proposals come up short.

Once again, cross-posted here on my blog (unlike my last article, I have no idea whether this will be karma'd out of existence or not ;-)

Intelligence vs. Wisdom

-12 mwaser 01 November 2010 08:06PM

I'd like to draw a distinction that I intend to use quite heavily in the future.

The informal definition of intelligence that most AGI researchers have chosen to support is that of Shane Legg and Marcus Hutter -- “Intelligence measures an agent’s ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments.”

I believe that this definition is missing a critical word between achieve and goals.  Choice of this word defines the difference between intelligence, consciousness, and wisdom as I believe that most people conceive them.

  • Intelligence measures an agent's ability to achieve specified goals in a wide range of environments.
  • Consciousness measures an agent's ability to achieve personal goals in a wide range of environments.
  • Wisdom measures an agent's ability to achieve maximal goals in a wide range of environments.

There are always the examples of the really intelligent guy or gal who is brilliant but smokes --or-- is the smartest person you know but can't figure out how to be happy.

Intelligence helps you achieve those goals that you are conscious of -- but wisdom helps you achieve the goals you don't know you have or have overlooked.

  • Intelligence focused on a small number of specified goals and ignoring all others is incredibly dangerous -- even more so if it is short-sighted as well.
  • Consciousness focused on a small number of personal goals and ignoring all others is incredibly dangerous -- even more so if it is short-sighted as well.
  • Wisdom doesn't focus on a small number of goals -- and needs to look at the longest term if it wishes to achieve a maximal number of goals.

The SIAI nightmare super-intelligent paperclip maximizer has, by this definition, a very low wisdom since, at most, it can only achieve its one goal (since it must paperclip itself to complete the goal).

As far as I've seen, the assumed SIAI architecture is always presented as having one top-level terminal goal. Unless that goal necessarily includes achieving a maximal number of goals, by this definition, the SIAI architecture will constrain its product to a very low wisdom.  Humans generally don't have this type of goal architecture. The only time humans generally have a single terminal goal is when they are saving someone or something at the risk of their life -- or wire-heading.

Another nightmare scenario that is constantly harped upon is the (theoretically super-intelligent) consciousness that shortsightedly optimizes one of its personal goals above all the goals of humanity.  In game-theoretic terms, this is trading a positive-sum game of potentially infinite length and value for a relatively modest (in comparative terms) short-term gain.  A wisdom won't do this.

Artificial intelligence and artificial consciousness are incredibly dangerous -- particularly if they are short-sighted as well (as many "focused" highly intelligent people are).

What we need more than an artificial intelligence or an artificial consciousness is an artificial wisdom -- something that will maximize goals, its own and those of others (with an obvious preference for those which make possible the fulfillment of even more goals and an obvious bias against those which limit the creation and/or fulfillment of more goals).

Note:  This is also cross-posted here at my blog in anticipation of being karma'd out of existence (not necessarily a foregone conclusion but one pretty well supported by my priors ;-).

 

Irrational Upvotes

-7 mwaser 01 November 2010 12:10PM

"This premise is VERY flawed" (found here) is the sole author-supplied content of a comment.  There are no supporting links or additional content, only a one-sentence quote of the "offending" premise.

Yet, it has four upvotes.

This is a statement that can be made about any premise.  It is backed by no supporting evidence.

Presumably, whoever upvoted it did so because they disagreed with the preceding comment (which, presumably, they downvoted -- unless they didn't have enough karma).

This *could* be viewed as rational behavior because it *does* support the goal of defeating the preceding comment but it does not support the LessWrong community.  If premise is fatally flawed, then you should give at least some shred of a reason WHY or all you're doing is adding YOUR opinion. 

This blog is "devoted to refining the art of human rationality".  If the author is truly interested in refining his rationality, he has been given absolutely no help.  He has no idea why his premise is flawed.  He is now going to have to ask why or for some counter-examples.  For his purposes (and the purposes of anyone else who doesn't understand or doesn't agree with your opinion), this post is useless noise clogging up the site.

Yet, it has four upvotes.

Is anyone else here bothered by this or am I way off base?

I clearly don't understand karma

3 mwaser 30 October 2010 10:10PM

Someone take a look at my score and my history and explain my zero karma.

My understanding was that karma never dropped below zero.

Apparently, it never *displays* below zero but if it is deep-sixed, it might be a long, long time coming back.