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An Alien Mind

openai.com

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Re: An Alien Mind

#451

Post by Havoc »

saimiam wrote: post #424

Isn’t alignment ultimately an ethics question? Given a strong enough incentive, most humans will also rationalise their shortcuts/crimes. E.g., the hardest part of running a marathon is suppressing the voice in your head telling you that completing the race is pointless. I’m not at all familiar with AI SOTA but sounds to me that feeding the models enough content about ethical behaviour should help because, as it stan…

> Isn’t alignment ultimately an ethics question?

It’s a let’s not die question

Re: An Alien Mind

#452

Post by noisy_boy »

anentropic wrote: post #425
noisy_boy wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it odd that discussions of alignment don't mention 'legality' Because other wishy-washy stuff doesn't involve prison. Not that our new oligarchs with the politicians in their pockets have any real risk of it, but why take chances. Much safer to doodle about alignment and such abstractions in safer and softer contexts.

But that was kind of my point Maybe it'd be easier to train the models on key parts of the legal code and give it a hard aversion to breaking the law - rather than training on vague value judgements and then hope the model doesn't break the law

I got that. I'm saying that it is deliberate. Wiggle room et all.

Re: An Alien Mind

#453

Post by nullbio »

intended wrote: post #364
nullbio wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is that serious repercussions for lying would fix the world overnight. Everything bad stems from lying, it is the root of all evil. It creates distrust, fear, paranoia. It re-inforces bad ideas and groupthink. It creates delusions and delusional people. It makes weaker people, too. People don't get an opportunity to learn to deal with criticism. People don't get an accurate reflection of how others see the…

Eh… No. I get the appeal, but lying is a sub-category of deception, and deception itself is a child of error. Meaning deception is inherently something that the physics of reality allows. In the most simplistic sense, the camouflage of moths that look like snakes, or a chameleon’s ability to change colour, is deception. In that sense, deception is the ability to fool the sensors of a specific category of targets. It…

It is critical for things like revolutions to occur, but I don't see a reason to believe that revolutions would be necessary in the world that I am describing. Revolutions are necessary when the majority is not being represented, but in an honest world, those collectives would not be elected to begin with. In an honest world, they wouldn't be able to clutch onto power by misdirecting and deceiving the public, and lying to those around them or corrupting those around them, to do their bidding.

I see your point about error and time pressure, but I think it's an unsustainable outcome without deception to carry it. For example, in the scenario where an error or selective pressure leads to being ruled over by a dominating force, it would either represent the majority at that point in time, or it would resolve itself out naturally as clarity is gained. In the world we live in, dominating forces are able to maintain power through misdirection.

Realistically, this is all well and good if we could start from scratch, and if everyone can agree to follow this system, but humanity is too far gone for this to work. Once you have too many psychopaths in the gene pool it's game over for any chance of cooperation over competition. Still, I think it's something we should at least strive for with AI.

Re: An Alien Mind

#454

Post by nullbio »

gffrd wrote: post #345
nullbio wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is that serious repercussions for lying would fix the world overnight. Everything bad stems from lying, it is the root of all evil. It creates distrust, fear, paranoia. It re-inforces bad ideas and groupthink. It creates delusions and delusional people. It makes weaker people, too. People don't get an opportunity to learn to deal with criticism. People don't get an accurate reflection of how others see the…

Why do people lie?

Fear and greed are the main two that come to mind.

Re: An Alien Mind

#455

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

EA-3167 wrote: post #307
reasonableklout wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? The wiki incident was discovered by independent investigators. OpenAI tried to cover it up and disputed the account from Reuters. And the reason it is receiving so much attention is because not only is the technology being developed behaving in unanticipated ways that are very much not tool-like, but OpenAI is being completely reckless and not monitoring internal agent actions. What would convince you that it is…

What would it take? A sea change, visible to all, much like the many externalities of this business are. Profit commensurate to investment. You know… juice worth the appalling squeeze we’re all being forced to endure.

What does the one have to do with the other? If I tell you I committed a crime and an independent investigator tells you I committed a crime, why would you need to know my income and outlays to decide whether I can commit crimes?

Re: An Alien Mind

#456

Post by nullbio »

ipaddr wrote: post #350
nullbio wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is that serious repercussions for lying would fix the world overnight. Everything bad stems from lying, it is the root of all evil. It creates distrust, fear, paranoia. It re-inforces bad ideas and groupthink. It creates delusions and delusional people. It makes weaker people, too. People don't get an opportunity to learn to deal with criticism. People don't get an accurate reflection of how others see the…

"I can't really think of a single example where lying is actually a good thing" Lying to save a life or rape Lying to preserve a childhood myth like Santa Claus. Lying to avoid hurting someones feeling when knowing the truth could only bring pain Lying to create shared cultural myths to strength society. Lying isn't the harm you make it out to be.

If you need to lie to someone to save a life or rape, society is already too far gone and this no longer applies.

> Lying to preserve a childhood myth like Santa Claus.

I remember when I learned that SC wasn't real, my first thought was something like: "Why did my parents lie to me all this time? Now I will need to be skeptical of what they tell me in the future." - personally not a fan of it.

> Lying to avoid hurting someones feeling when knowing the truth could only bring pain

Short term pain leads to strengthening of the spirit, and by lying to someone in this scenario you are robbing them of something. You're also assuming they aren't fit enough to cope, which may be an incorrect assumption.

> Lying to create shared cultural myths to strength society.

Cultural myths aren't aren't really lies, they're story telling. It comes with an assumption of being a mix of fiction with fact.

Re: An Alien Mind

#457

Post by nullbio »

wizardforhire wrote: post #399
nullbio wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is that serious repercussions for lying would fix the world overnight. Everything bad stems from lying, it is the root of all evil. It creates distrust, fear, paranoia. It re-inforces bad ideas and groupthink. It creates delusions and delusional people. It makes weaker people, too. People don't get an opportunity to learn to deal with criticism. People don't get an accurate reflection of how others see the…

Game mechanics and evolutionary biology would like to have a word with you.

Humans are really the only animal that lies overtly. Other animals deceive via misdirection, but in a world of scarce resources, and where everyone has to play by that game, it's a fair bit easier to justify.

Humanity has so much dominion over its environment at this point that there really is no need for resource competition, from a survival perspective. But good luck getting people to all agree to share collectively. And unless everyone does it, no one will do it.

Re: An Alien Mind

#458

Post by nullbio »

markburns wrote: post #344
nullbio wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is that serious repercussions for lying would fix the world overnight. Everything bad stems from lying, it is the root of all evil. It creates distrust, fear, paranoia. It re-inforces bad ideas and groupthink. It creates delusions and delusional people. It makes weaker people, too. People don't get an opportunity to learn to deal with criticism. People don't get an accurate reflection of how others see the…

The majority of what you may consider to be true is just a representation of your corner of a complex multidimensional truth space. For a current example take “Lake Ontario (Lake America)” as it appears to me on a map. The “true” name has at least two definitions, this is because naming things and much of human thought is spent inside a shared space of intersubjective thought. That is to say that much of what we beli…

Resistance is futile.

Re: An Alien Mind

#459

Post by ctoth »

nullbio wrote: post #301
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collectively, humans aren't aligned, and don't build aligned systems. Humans have a concept of alignment, and multiple traditions, practices, and systems that aggressively oppose it. Why would AI be any different?

My opinion is that serious repercussions for lying would fix the world overnight. Everything bad stems from lying, it is the root of all evil. It creates distrust, fear, paranoia. It re-inforces bad ideas and groupthink. It creates delusions and delusional people. It makes weaker people, too. People don't get an opportunity to learn to deal with criticism. People don't get an accurate reflection of how others see the…

> I can't really think of a single example where lying is actually a good thing.

Do you have Jews in that there attic?

Re: An Alien Mind

#460

Post by 6510 »

icantevenhold wrote: post #190
baq wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans had multiple occasions to press the 'launch a nuclear holocaust' button and... they didn't. I'd expect aligned AIs to also not press it even when it'd be rational to do so according to their instructions - then work from there.

In what scenario would it be rational to unleash complete and utter permanent nuclear destruction of all life (including artificial) life on earth?

If you do it after they kill you it would be rational.
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