All of Alexander Herwix 🔸's Comments + Replies

I don't think it's unreasonable to discuss the appropriateness of particular timelines per se but the fact remains that this is not the purpose or goal of the book. As I acknowledged, short to medium term timelines are helpful for motivating the relevance or importance of the issue. However, I think timelines in the 5 to 50 year range are a very common position now, which means that the book can reasonably use this as a starting point for engaging with its core interest, the conditional what if. 

Given this as a backdrop, I think it's fair to say that ... (read more)

I didn’t comment on the accuracy of individual timelines but emphasized that the main topic of the book is the conditional what if… it doesn’t really make sense to critique the book at length for something it’s only tangentially touching upon to motivate the relevance of its main topic. And they are not making outrageous claims here if you look at the ongoing discourse and ramping up investments. 

It’s possible to take Yudkowsky seriously even if you are less certain on timelines and outcomes. 

It could be an interesting exercise for you to reflect on the origins of your emotional reactions to Yudkowski‘s views. 

You are not addressing the key point of my comment which is regarding the nature of their argument and your straw manning of their position. Why should I take your posts seriously if you feel the need to resort to these kind of tactics? 

I am just trying to provide you with some perspective with why people might feel the need to downvote you. If you want people like me to engage (although I didn’t downvote, I don’t really have an interest in reading your blog), I would recommend meeting us where we are: Concerned about current developments potentially ... (read more)

I didn’t down vote but it seems like you are attacking a straw man here… the book is explicitly focused on the conditional IF anyone builds it. They never claim to know how to build it but simply suggest that it is not unlikely to be built in the future. I don’t know in which world you are living but this starting assumption seems pretty plausible to me (and quite a few other people more knowledgeable than me on those topics such as Nobel prize and Turing Award winners…). If not in 5 then maybe in 50 years. 

I would say at this point the burden is on you to make the case that the overall topic is nothing to worry about. Why not write your own book or posts where you let your arguments speak for themselves? 

So, you do it on purpose, not out of inability? Thanks for clarifying.

I love this question and I am looking forward to see what hedonic utilitarians come up with here. This has similar vibes to computronium thought experiments but better. Thanks for pointing this question out to me :)

Thanks for sharing this! It's an entertaining read and a valuable reminder of the limits of our perspectives. I love how the cleaner shows up at the end. True koan vibes!

I don't have time to read the full post and series but the logic of your argument reminds me very much of Werner Ulrich's work. May be interesting for you to check him out. I will list suggested references in order of estimated cost/benefit. The first paper is pretty short but already makes some of your key arguments and offers a proposal for how to deal with what you call "unawareness". 

Ulrich, W. (1994). Can We Secure Future-Responsive Management Through Systems Thinking and Design? Interfaces, 24(4), 26–37. https://doi.org/10.1287/inte.24.4.26

Ulric... (read more)

I think it would be helpful to not use longtermism in this synonymous way because I think it’s prone to lead to misunderstandings and unproductive conflict. 

For example, there is a school of thought called the person affecting view, which denies that future, non-existing people have moral patient hood but would still be able to have reasonable discussions about intergenerational justice in the sense of children might want to have children, etc. 

In general, I wouldn’t characterize those views as any more or less extreme or flat-footed than weak fo... (read more)

It seems to me that you use “intergenerational justice” and longtermism in somewhat synonymous fashion. I think I would disagree with this sentiment. Longtermism is a specific set of positions whereas I would see intergenerational justice as a more open concept that can be defined and discussed from different positions.

I also think that there are reasonable critiques of longtermism. In the spirit of your post, I hope you stay open to considering those views.

I have only read the summarybot comment but based on that I wanted to leave a literature suggestion that could be interesting to people who liked this post and want to think more about how to put a pragmatic approach to ethics into practice.

Ulrich, W. (2006). Critical Pragmatism: A New Approach to Professional and Business Ethics. In Interdisciplinary Yearbook for Business Ethics. V. 1, v. 1,. Peter Lang Pub Inc. 

Abstract: Major contemporary conceptions of ethics such as discourse ethics and neocontractarian ethics are not grounded in a sufficiently p... (read more)

I am wondering if you could say something about how the political developments in the US (i.e., Trump 2.0) are affecting your thinking on AGI race dynamics? It seems like the default assumption communicated publicly is still that the US are "the good guys" and a "western liberal democracy" that can be counted on, when the actual actions on the world stage are casting at least some doubt on this position. In some sense, one could even argue that we are already playing out a high-stakes alignment crisis at this very moment.

Any reactions or comments on this issue? I understand that openness around this topic is difficult at the moment but I also don't think that complete silence is all that wise either. 

I don’t agree with this sentiment. At least for me I really do not see any real cost associated with being vegan that would keep me from earning more or being a better person in any meaningful way.

For example, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t work more if I ate more meat, why would I? There really doesn’t seem to be a causal pathway here. Maybe if you really crave beef and you can’t help yourself thinking about this all the time… yeah, that could be distracting and reduce your performance but I am not sure that something like this occurs all that often. Never h... (read more)

Maybe I am naive but what is the cost that’s associated with not eating meat? Not having the taste of it? What motivates you to donate money to reduce animal suffering if you believe that your taste is more valuable than the life of the animal in the first place? Or are you at a point where you believe that animals matter enough to warrant some small amounts of donations but not to deprive you of their taste?

I mean, of course it’s good to donate but I don’t see why this means that you should continue the practice that you want to offset if you can help it or am I missing something?

Similarly, if I offset pollution, I do not turn around and pollute more because that would defeat the purpose?!

Reading your comments, I think we come from different perspectives when reading such a post. 

I read the post as an attempt to highlight a blind spot in "orthodox" EA thinking, which simply tries to make a case for the need to revisit some deeply ingrained assumptions based on alternative viewpoints. This tends to make me curious about the alternative viewpoints offered and if I find them at least somewhat plausible and compelling I try to see what I can do with them based on their own assumptions. I do not necessarily see it as the job of the post to ... (read more)

I think the post was already acknowledging the difference in perspective and trying to make the case that the perspective that you are advocating for seems shortsighted from their perspective.

The key point here seems to be the consideration that is given to interconnectedness. Whereas “traditional” EA assumes stability in the Earth System and focuses “only” on marginal improvements ceteris paribus, the ecological perspective highlights the interconnectedness of “everything” and the need for a systemic focus on sustaining the entire Earth system rather than... (read more)

I have never said that how we treat nonhuman animals is “solely” due to differences in power. The point that I have made is that AIs are not humans and I have tried to illustrate that differences between species tend to matter in culture and social systems.

But we don’t even have to go to species differences, ethnic differences are already enough to create quite a bit of friction in our societies (e.g., racism, caste systems, etc.). Why don’t we all engage in mutually beneficial trade and cooperate to live happily ever after?

Because while we have mostly con... (read more)

But what makes you think that this can be a longterm solution if the needs and capabilities of the involved parties are strongly divergent as in human vs AI scenarios?

I agree that trading can probably work for a couple of years, maybe decades, but if the AIs want something different from us in the long term what should stop them from getting this?

I don’t see a way around value alignment in the strict sense (ironically this could also involve AIs aligning our values to theirs similar to how we have aligned dogs).

The difference is that a superintelligence or even an AGI is not human and they will likely need very different environments from us to truly thrive. Ask factory farmed animals or basically any other kind of nonhuman animal if our world is in a state of violance or war… As soon as strong power differentials and diverging needs show up the value cocreation narrative starts to lose it’s magic. It works great for humans but it doesn’t really work with other species that are not very close and aligned with us. Dogs and cats have arguably fared quite well but o... (read more)

This reminds me of the work on the Planungszelle in Germany but with some more bells and whistles. One difference that I see is that afaik the core idea in more traditional deliberation processes is that the process itself is also understandable by the average citizen. This gives it some grounding and legitimacy in that all people involved in the process can cross-check each other and make sure that the outcome is not manipulated. You seem to be diverging from this ideal a little bit in the sense that you seem to require the use of sophisticated statistica... (read more)

The key point that I am trying to make is that you seem to argue against our common sense understanding that animals are sentient because they are anatomically similar to us in many respects and also demonstrate behavior that we would expect sentient creatures to have. Rather you come up with your own elaborate requirements that you argue are necessary for a being able to say something about qualia in other beings but then at some point (maybe at the point where you feel comfortable with your conclusions) you stop following your own line of argument throug... (read more)

But how can you assume that humans in general have qualia if all the talking about qualia tells you only that qualia exist somewhere in the causal structure? Maybe all talking about qualia derives from a single source? How would you know? For me, this seems to be a kind of a reductio ad absurdum for your entire line of argument.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I think you are onto an interesting angle here that could be worthwhile exploring if you are so inclined. 

One interesting line of work that you do not seem to be considering at the moment but could be interesting is the work done in the "metacrisis" (or polycrisis) space. See this presentation for an overview but I recommend diving deeper than this to get a better sense of the space. What this perspective is interested in is trying to understand and address the underlying patterns, which create the wicked situation we... (read more)

Hey Daniel,

as I also stated in another reply to Nick, I didn’t really mean to diminish the point you raised but to highlight that this is really more of a „meta point“ that’s only tangential to the matter of the issue outlined. My critical reaction was not meant to be against you or the point you raised but the more general community practice / trend of focusing on those points at the expense of engaging the subject matter itself, in particular, when the topic is against mainstream thinking. This I think is somewhat demonstrated by the fact that your comme... (read more)

Hey Nick,

thanks for your reply. I didn’t mean to say that Daniel didn’t have a point. It’s a reasonable argument to make. I just wanted to highlight that this shouldn’t be the only angle to look at such posts. If you look, his comment is by far the most upvoted and it only addresses a point tangential to the problem at hand. Of course, getting upvoted is not his „fault“. I just felt compelled to highlight that overly focusing on this kind of angle only brings us so far.

Hope that makes it clearer :)

Your question reminded me of the following quote:

It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It

Maybe here we are talking about an alternative version of this:

It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Say Something When His Salary (or Relevance, Power, Influence, Status) Depends Upon Him Not Saying It

Isn’t your point a little bit pedantic here in the sense that you seem to be perfectly able to understand the key point the post was trying to make, find that point somewhat objectionable or controversial, and thus point to some issues regarding „framing“ rather than really engage deeply with the key points?

Of course, every post could be better written, more thoughtful, etc. but let’s be honest, we are here to make progress on important issues and not to win „argument style points.“ In particular, I find it disturbing that this technique of criticizing sty... (read more)

Thank you for writing this post!

I think it is really important to stay flexible in the mind and to not tie ourselves into race dynamics prematurely. I hope that reasonable voices such as yours can broaden the discourse and maybe even open up doors that were only closed in our minds but never truly locked.

Ok, I acknowledge that I might have misunderstood your intent. If had taken that your point was to dispassionately explain why people (the EA community) don't engage with this topic, I myself might have reacted more dispassionately. However, as I read your comments, I don't think that it was very clear that this is what you were after. Rather, it seemed like you were actively making the case against engaging with the topic and using strawmanning tactics to make your point. I would encourage you to be more clear in this regard in the future, I will try to b... (read more)

I would argue that it is a snarky but honest reflection of my state of mind. I also support my claim with evidence if you continue to read the comment. I am walking a fine line but I think my comment should still pass as constructive and well-intentioned all things considered. If you beg to differ feel free to make your case. 

I have to disclaim that I am NOT an expert on degrowth but from everything I know about the topic you are building up a huge strawman and misrepresenting their position in a way that really proves the point I was trying to make. 

Just searching on google scholar for the term "degrowth" and looking at the first result, I come to an open access article "Research on Degrowth" in a reputable outlet with a reviewing discussion of the actual positions held and research being done on the topic. I have not read the entire article but from engaging with it for ... (read more)

Being “agnostic” in all situations is itself a dogmatic position. It’s like claiming to be “agnostic” on every epistemic claim or belief. Sure, you can be, but some beliefs might be much more likely than others. I continue to consider the possibility that pleasure is not the only good; I just find it extremely unlikely. That could change.

If you read what I have written, you will see that I am not taking a dogmatic position but simply advocate for staying open-minded when approaching a situation. I tried to describe that as trying to be "agnostic" about the... (read more)

As above, these conflicting intuitions can only be resolved through a process of reflection. I am glad that you support such a process. You seem disappointed that the result of this process has, for me, led to utilitarianism. This is not a “premature closing of this process” any more than your pluralist stance is a premature closing of this process. What we are both doing is going back and forth saying “please reflect harder”. I have sprinkled some reading recommendations throughout to facilitate this.

I am only disappointed if you stop reflecting and quest... (read more)

One caution I want to add here is that downvoting when a post is fresh / not popular can have strong filter effects and lead to premature muting of discussion. If the first handful of readers simply dislike a post and downvote it, this makes it much less likely for a more diverse crowd of people to find it and express their take on it. We should consider that there are many different viewpoints out there and that this is important for epistemic health. Thus, I encourage anyone to be mindful when considering to further downvote posts that are already unpopular.

I think one point of this post is to challenge the community to engage more openly with the question of degrowth and to engage in argument rather than dismiss it outright. I have not followed this debate in detail but I sympathize with the take that issues which are controversial with EAs are often disregarded without due engagement by the community.

I think you are misrepresenting a few things here. 

First, Catholics talk a lot about ethics. Please come up with a better excuse to brush away the critique I made. I am almost offended by the laziness of your argument. 

Second, you are misrepresenting the post. It does not assert that we should "value everything that we already care emotionally about". It argues for reflecting about what values we actually hold dear and have good reason to hold dear. This stands in contrast to your position, which amounts to arguing for a premature closing of this... (read more)

Hey Devin, 

first of all, thanks for engaging and the offer in the end. If you want to continue the discussion feel free to reach out via PM. 

I think there is some confusion about my and also Spencer Greenberg's position. Afaik, we are both moral anti-realists and not suggesting that moral realism is a tenable position. Without presuming to know much about Spencer, I have taken his stance in the post to be that he did not want to "argue" with realists in that post because even though he rejects their position, it requires a different type of argum... (read more)

It is certainly conceivable that I am “under the pernicious influence of utilitarianism”, in which case I would by default become a nihilist and abandon any attempt to reduce the suffering of sentient beings.

You certainly lost me here. All I am asking for is humility regarding our ability to "know" things, in particular regarding ethics. Every part of your argument could have been made by catholic dogmatists, who have likely engaged for much longer and deeper in painstaking reflection. For me that would be a worrying sign but I certainly did not intend for... (read more)

Call me naive but your argument doesn't go through for me. You write...

As in mathematics and logic, rational intuition is ultimately my yardstick for determining the truth of a proposition. I think it self-evident that the good of any one individual is of no more importance than the good of any other and that a greater good should be preferred to a lesser good. As for what that good is, everything comes down to pleasure on reflection.

So your standard for adjudicating the "truth" of propositions is your "rational intuition". You think your position "self-ev... (read more)

A few provocative questions: What is your yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of your theory compared to other theories? How much work have you done to figure out how to falsify utilitarianism and consider alternatives? How do you deal with the objections to utilitarianism and the fact that there is no expert consensus on what moral theory is "right"?

I mean do what floats your boat as long as you don't hurt other people (and beings) and behave in otherwise responsible ways (i.e., please don't become the next SBF) but I am always pretty surprised and ... (read more)

This position seems confusing to me. So, either (1) ethics is something "out there", which we can try to learn about and uncover. Then, we would tend to treat all our theories and models as approximations to some degree because similar issues as in science apply. Or (2) we take ethics as something which we define in some way to suit some of our own goals. Then, it's pretty arbitrary what models we come up with, whether they make sense depends mainly on the goals we have in mind. 

This kind of mirrors the question whether a moral theory is to be taken a... (read more)

Yeah, I think the intuitions it pumps really depends on the perspective and mindset of the reader. For me, it was triggering my desire to exhibit comradery and friendship in the last moments of life. I could also adjust the thought experiment so that nobody is hurt and simply ask whether one of them should take the morphine or whether they should die "being there for each other". I really do believe that we are kidding ourselves when we say that we only value "welfare" narrowly construed. But I get that some people may just look at such situations with a d... (read more)

Thanks for sharing this post and pointing out some of the inconsistencies and confusions you see around you! I think being curious and inquisitive about such matters and engaging in open and constructive dialog is important and healthy for the community! 

Interestingly, I actually made a related post just slightly earlier today, which was trying to spark some discussion around a thought experiment I came up with to highlight some similar concerns/observations. I think your post is much more fleshed out, so thank you for posting!

I changed the title of the question and made some small changes to the text to make clearer what I am after with this. I would like to encourage reflection on the part of the value monist utilitarians in this forum. There may be instrumentally good reasons to use value monist utilitarian theories for some purposes but we should be open-minded and forthright in acknowledging its limitations and not take it as a "moral theory of everything". Let's not mistake the map for the territory!

I agree with your general thrust. The thought experiment is a little bit contrived but deliberately designed to make both options look somewhat plausible. A value monist negative utilitarian could also give the medicine to Alice, so it's not even clear what option one would go for.
 
However, what I really wonder though is if "welfare" is the only thing we care about at the end of times? Or is there maybe also the question of how we got there? How we handled ourselves in difficult situations? What values we embodied when we were alive? Are we not at ris... (read more)

I mean, I do get the appeal. But as you say it also has pretty huge drawbacks. I am curious how far people are willing to tie themselves to the mast and argue that value monism is actually a tenable position to take as a "life philosophy" despite it's drawbacks. How far are you willing to defend your "principles" even if the situation really calls them into question? What would your reply to the thought experiment be?

I have nothing against that and think it’s a viable position to have if one has actually invested the time to reason through the challenges presented to a degree that they feel comfortable with. I only question whether this justifies downvoting because to some degree it keeps other people from forming their own opinions on the matter.

Maybe our difference in opinion stems from my perception that downvoting is a tool that should be carefully wielded and not be used to simply highlight disagreement. (I mean there is a reason why we have two voting mechanisms for comments after all)

Mhh, I kind of disagree with the sentiment and assignment of responsibility here.

This is a link post to a critical post on EA-related ideas. I would hope this to spark more or less of an discussion of its merits. I get that some people may be tired of Torres but is this reason enough to actively try to prevent such a discussion? I mean nobody is forced to upvote but downvoting (in particular below 0) does limit the traction this gets from other people. To me this feels like trying to bury voices one doesn’t want to hear, which may be helpful in the short r... (read more)