"Death with Dignity" Elizer Yudkowsky and goal setting
Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2023 6:32 am
Elizer Yudkowsky is convinced everyone is going to die due to AI. This caused him to come up with the eye-catching strategy of "Death with Dignity".
Which can be applied not just to AI alignment but your own life.
If something you care greatly about is seemingly impossible or at least extremely unlikely (I would also add if most probability occurs despite your actions) your likely to give up or at least not make a serious effort reducing the odds of getting what you want.
what are the solutions?
Change your psychology?
No! This in itself is very hard or impossible.
Change your beliefs?
No! Humans are very good at hope/wishful thinking but you're now just lying to yourself corrupting your decision making on said goal and allowing inaccuracies/lies to leak into other goals.
Change your goal? Yes!
Changing a goal can be nominally corrupting but it is the easiest option.
You change your goal from I will achieve X thing to I will maximize the odds of X thing being achieved.
Instead of focusing on binary victory/defeat. You can focus on how each action increases or decreases the odds of getting what you want.
Lets say you're a 20 year old living in 1960 and you really want to live forever something seemingly ridiculous and impossible.
You can give up dying by 2020 or you can go down with slightly more dignity, dignity being how much you shifted your odds and maybe squeeze out a win after successfully making your life expectancy 2030.
When it comes to AI safety this is what Elizer advocates, (not a quote but how I interpret his message) "hey we are pretty much certainly all going to die I won't lie about this but lets go down with slightly more dignity by at least putting in a really good effort and increase the odds we squeeze out humanities survival".
If there is something you really care about that you think is impossible don't give up fail with dignity.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j9Q8bRm ... y-strategy
Which can be applied not just to AI alignment but your own life.
If something you care greatly about is seemingly impossible or at least extremely unlikely (I would also add if most probability occurs despite your actions) your likely to give up or at least not make a serious effort reducing the odds of getting what you want.
what are the solutions?
Change your psychology?
No! This in itself is very hard or impossible.
Change your beliefs?
No! Humans are very good at hope/wishful thinking but you're now just lying to yourself corrupting your decision making on said goal and allowing inaccuracies/lies to leak into other goals.
Change your goal? Yes!
Changing a goal can be nominally corrupting but it is the easiest option.
You change your goal from I will achieve X thing to I will maximize the odds of X thing being achieved.
Instead of focusing on binary victory/defeat. You can focus on how each action increases or decreases the odds of getting what you want.
Lets say you're a 20 year old living in 1960 and you really want to live forever something seemingly ridiculous and impossible.
You can give up dying by 2020 or you can go down with slightly more dignity, dignity being how much you shifted your odds and maybe squeeze out a win after successfully making your life expectancy 2030.
When it comes to AI safety this is what Elizer advocates, (not a quote but how I interpret his message) "hey we are pretty much certainly all going to die I won't lie about this but lets go down with slightly more dignity by at least putting in a really good effort and increase the odds we squeeze out humanities survival".
If there is something you really care about that you think is impossible don't give up fail with dignity.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j9Q8bRm ... y-strategy
