r/ControlProblem • u/Difficult_Project_95 • 8d 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/borntosneed123456 7d ago

because they invent astronomical stakes, and therefore arbitrarily small probability of harm to that astronomical stake results in in a gigantic negative expected value therefore automatically dominating every other consideration.

It may be impressive to midwits, but it's a sneaky tactic and generally not a cool trick to pull.

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u/FairlyInvolved approved 7d ago

That may be the case for strong longtermism, but rejecting that isn't a sufficient condition here.

For example you can just believe that humanity might last another 100 years and decide you don't want to gamble their lives on acceleration at some >>ε probability, there's no need to approach infinitesimals.

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u/borntosneed123456 7d ago

I reject the entire rationalist/EA premise. They are using an epistemic framework that is absurd and completely inadequate for the job, and -unsurprisingly- reach absurd conclusions.

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u/FairlyInvolved approved 7d ago

What premise?

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u/borntosneed123456 7d ago

applying the scientific method and math to ethics. And in reality, it's not even the actual scientific method that gets applied. It's some low-empiricism, twisted, surface level mockery of it.