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All of TheDude's Comments + Replies

Failed Utopia #4-2
TheDude-20

(I'm arrogantly/wisely staying neutral on the question of whether or not it is at all useful to in any way engage with the sort of people whose project proposals can be validly argued against using squish djinn analogies)

(jokes often work by deliberately being understood in different ways at different times by the same listener (the end of the joke deliberately changes the interpretation of the beginning of the joke (in a way that makes fun of someone)). In this case the meaning of the beginning of the joke is not one thing or the other thing. The listener... (read more)

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Failed Utopia #4-2
TheDude-20

To expand on you having a point. I have obviously not seen every AI proposal on the internet, but as far as I know, no one is proposing to build a wish granting AI that parses speech like a squish djinn (and ending up with such an AI would require a deliberate effort). So I don't think the squish djinn is a valid argument against proposed wish granting AIs. Any proposed or realistic speech interpreting AI would (as you say) parse english speech as english speech. An AI that makes arbitrary distinctions between different types of meaning would need serious ... (read more)

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-2TheDude
(I'm arrogantly/wisely staying neutral on the question of whether or not it is at all useful to in any way engage with the sort of people whose project proposals can be validly argued against using squish djinn analogies) (jokes often work by deliberately being understood in different ways at different times by the same listener (the end of the joke deliberately changes the interpretation of the beginning of the joke (in a way that makes fun of someone)). In this case the meaning of the beginning of the joke is not one thing or the other thing. The listener is not first failing to understand what was said and then, after hearing the end, succeeding to understand it. The speaker is intending the listener to understand the first meaning until reaching the end, so the listener is not "first failing to encode the transmission". There is no inherently true meaning of the beginning of the joke, no inherently true person that this speaker is actually truly referring to. Just a speaker that intends to achieve certain effects on an audience by saying things (and if the speaker is successful, then at the beginning of the joke the listener infers a different meaning from what it infers after hearing the end of the joke). One way to illuminate the concepts discussed above would be to write: "on a somewhat related note, I once considered creating the username "New_Willsome" and to start posting things that sounded like you (for the purpose of demonstrating that if you counter a ban by using sock puppets, you loose your ability to stop people from speaking in your name (I was considering the options of actually acting like I think you would have acted, and the option of including subtle distortions to what I think you would have said, and the option of doing my best to give better explanations of the concepts that you talk about)). But then a bunch of usernames similar to yours showed up and were met with hostility, and I was in a hurry, and drunk, and bat shit crazy, and God to
Failed Utopia #4-2
TheDude00

I think you have a point Will (an AI that interprets speech like a squish djinn would require deliberate effort and is proposed by no one), but I think that it is possible to construct a valid squish djinn/AI analogy (a squish djinn interpreting a command would be roughly analogous to an AI that is hard coded to execute that command).

Sorry to everyone for the repetitive statements and the resulting wall of text (that unexpectedly needed to be posted as multiple comments since it was to long). Predicting how people will interpret something is non trivial, a... (read more)

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-2TheDude
To expand on you having a point. I have obviously not seen every AI proposal on the internet, but as far as I know, no one is proposing to build a wish granting AI that parses speech like a squish djinn (and ending up with such an AI would require a deliberate effort). So I don't think the squish djinn is a valid argument against proposed wish granting AIs. Any proposed or realistic speech interpreting AI would (as you say) parse english speech as english speech. An AI that makes arbitrary distinctions between different types of meaning would need serious deliberate effort, and as far as I know, no one is proposing to do this. This makes the squish djinn analogy invalid as an argument against proposals to build a wish granting AI. It is a basic fact that statements does not have specified "meanings" attached to them, and AI proposals takes this into account. To take an extreme example to make this very clear would be Bill saying: "Steve is an idiot" to two listeners where one listener will predictably think of one Steve and the other listener will predictable think of some other Steve (or a politician making a speech that different demographics will interpret differently and to their own liking). Bill (or the politician) does not have a specific meaning of which Steve (or which message) they are referring to. This speaker is deliberately making a statement in order to have different effects on different audiences. Another standard example is responding to a question about the location of an object with: "look behind you" (anyone that is able to understand english and has no serious mental deficiencies would be able to guess that the meaning is that the object is/might be behind them (as opposed to following the order and be surprised to see the object lying there and think "what a strange coincidence")). Building an AI that would parse "look behind you" without understanding that the person is actually saying "it is/might be behind you" would require deliberate effo
The Evil AI Overlord List
TheDude20

I think what Nesov is talking about is best described as a mind that will attack conditioned on victim behavior alone (not considering possible behavior changes of the victim in any way). This is different from an N order blackmailer. In fact I think blackmail is the wrong word here (Nesov says that he does not know what blackmail means in this context, so this is not that surprising). For example, instead of seeking behavior modification through threats, such a mind seeks justice through retribution. I think the most likely SI that implements this is extr... (read more)

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0Eliezer Yudkowsky
Agreed that this is a different case, since it doesn't originate in any expectation of behavior modification.
Under-acknowledged Value Differences
TheDude110

Did you just succeed in using gender conflicts as the non political analogous example which allows rational discourse regarding a highly inflamed, trench war topic that would degenerate into something worse than a (subtle and cold version of a) flame war if discussed directly? (different estimates of ones type of reflective equilibrium results in different preferred extrapolation dynamic/initial group/etc (which of course results in cases where it can be instrumentally rational for a non perfect liar to believe in false things))

If you did this on purpose, you are my new personal hero!

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Wei Dai100

The relevance to CEV/FAI did cross my mind when I was writing this post, but no, the reason I wrote it was that people were saying that the gender-related discussions on LW are not very productive, but seemed puzzled as to why.

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