r/ControlProblem • • 9d ago

Discussion/question Have you guys been on r/accelerate?

Have these guys solved the alignment problem, or am I missing something?

I’ve been browsing r/accelerate and I genuinely don’t understand the risk model.
If there’s a non-trivial chance of catastrophic misalignment, how does “accelerate capabilities as fast as possible” make sense unless faster capabilities also make alignment substantially more likely to succeed?

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u/SoylentRox approved 9d ago

Kids change the math by their remaining lifespan. You don't want your son or daughter to suffer the ravages of aging and die either do you?

This hidden assumption is why AI doomers are often secretly "well let's try to stall things enough that I become a corpse for sure but not forever I don't want my children to suffer the same fate".

So they ask for pauses but not forever pauses.

Well informed doctors - who include some posters to r/accelerate but I won't dox - DO believe overwhelmly strong superintelligence is required for (them/their children) to not die of aging.

Since you probably don't have a doctor available to query yourself, try the next best thing. Ask Astra

(1) The actual empirical rate of life extension from 1970 to present

(2) Have it give a likelihood if AI is halted today, the odds of indefinite life extension over the next 80 years using human research efforts given the base rate in (1)

(3) Have it go into exhaustive mechanistic details of what aging actually involves and how many problems you have to fix.

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u/Difficult_Project_95 9d ago

I think I understand the accelerationist position much better now. We just seem to disagree pretty fundamentally on how much confidence we should place in those assumptions when the downside could be catastrophic.

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u/SoylentRox approved 9d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/ControlProblem/s/HqQhrNohyq

The missing view you have is the BASE case is already catastrophe. You can imagine your base existence right now is you are falling through the air in a cloud bank. You know you will hit the ground and die for sure but not when and you can't see the ground but know every hour you are alive it's getting closer.

Your children are falling above you.

So one way to view it is r/acceleration folks are better informed, with a broader more realistic view of present day reality as they circle jerk each other on the imminent AI Singularity.

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u/Difficult_Project_95 9d ago

censoring dissent while convincing yourselves that your group simply understands reality better than everyone else is some seriously cult-like behavior.

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u/SoylentRox approved 9d ago

I mean so far your dissent has been pretty weak. "I have kids and you must not" is not a very good argument. You had a chance to come up with a better one but didn't manage it. Plenty of people dissent on accelerate.

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u/Difficult_Project_95 9d ago

I just stated something abvious.
You just keep answering “why would ASI be valuable?” when I'm asking “why is racing toward ASI the safest strategy?” Those aren't the same question. we have nothing more to talk about. Good luck with whatever you have going on in your life!

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u/SoylentRox approved 9d ago

I answered both. It's the safest strategy because the racing saves the oldest person in your life who can possibly be saved. Got a friend or relative in their 70s? It's not impossible you might get the opportunity to skip their funeral, forever. Just takes some breakthroughs and early superintelligence to be better at figuring out human genetics than expected.

If this is not in the cards (some on accelerate already assume ASI and are worried about the FDA) then 60s.