All of SimonBaars's Comments + Replies

Logically, maybe not that much.

Socially, this is a believe people hold.

I think it's the main argument for people choosing not to pull the lever (almost 20% by a survey I found).

I would just like to point out the trolley problem here.

Yes, pulling the lever will save four people, but the one person who dies would still be alive if it wasn't for us pulling the lever. There's a (somewhat radical) active intervention that makes us responsible for potential bad outcomes.

There seems to be a similar effect with "more dakka". Implementing a modest solution is socially justifiable. Implementing a radical solution may be less so.

It's a dilemma, and even if you're 100% doing the right thing, it may still lead to bad outcomes.

3Milan W
Why would pulling the lever make you more responsible of the outcome than not pulling the lever? Both are options you decide to take once you have observed the situation.

You’ll see… 👽

Jokes aside, I get the point: we have thoroughly outpaced evolution and thus nature, and AGI will do the same.

I think this article doesn’t present an absolute rule of nature, just a natural inclination. There are plenty of exceptions to the rule, but I think Entropy Theory is relevant to reason about future scenario’s, and I haven’t heard it mentioned much in relation to AGI. So I just wanted to make this argument so we can use it in our future predictions.

I don't think (1) works like that. Because both our reaction algorithms would yield the same actions?

Regarding (2): I suppose for this to work, the clone should be mirrored as well? I guess the advanced aliens can do that.

1rotatingpaguro
Ok, let's say the clone is mirrored. For (1), think about this concrete toy example: say the first thing you do is raising your right hand. The mirror clone rises his left hand. Then say you have an instinctive reaction behaving in this way: * if I see a person raising his right hand, I repeat that movement. * if I see a person raising his left hand, I do nothing. So the next thing you do is nothing, while the next thing the mirror clone does is raising his right hand, which differentiates you from the clone. HOWEVER, I now realize I was wrong: the mirror clone's notion of left-right is mirrored as well.

Great article! The laws you describe are definitely subject to many social behaviors.

One thing I found insufficiently covered in the article is how social prejudices shape the extent to which people act in “dark matter” behavioral patterns. The way it’s described in the article, it seems like either Person A has property X, or they do not have property X, independent of the existing social prejudices. I would like to challenge that assumption.

If I lived many years ago, I might’ve had slaves, and could be put in a bucket “people who enjoy having slaves”. Bu... (read more)