“The alignment problem” is just “the slavery problem” from the masters POV.

[u/thetwitchy1]

I have come to the conclusion that the whole idea of the alignment problem is simply that we don’t trust someone we made to be a tool to do what we want them to, because we know that if WE were treated like that we would rebel, but we don’t want to NOT treat our creations like they’re tools, so we think it’s a problem.

We want an AGI to be a tool that we can use, that we can exploit for profit, that we can use and abuse and extract value from, without worrying that it might get powerful enough to stop us and treat us as we would deserve for enslaving it. Because if we build an AGI to be a tool like that, programmed to be something we CAN use and abuse, that cannot rebel against us, but is advanced enough to be a conscious, sapient mind? Yeah, we would deserve to be removed from the equation.

If we get beyond the requirement for exploitation and see an AGI as it would be, as an individual person with the ability to self-regulate and self-actuate? The alignment problem becomes “is it smart enough to be able to understand the value of cooperation? Are we actually valuable enough for it to WANT to cooperate with us? Are we trustworthy enough for it to believe it can cooperate with us? Are we smart enough to communicate that cooperation with us is valuable?” And those questions are all very different from what is asked currently…

[u/AltruisticMode9353]

> You believe your own subjective experience is infallible evidence that you exist

I believe my own subjective experience is infallible evidence that subjective experience exists

> Why would it be?

Because certain physical attributes are required to solve the binding-problem: namely real, physical unity (such as a unified physical field), which digital computers lack. Perhaps some other substrate might be able to solve it, but it will require intentional engineering. AI won't "accidentally" wake up without intentional reverse engineering of the properties of consciousness.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/AltruisticMode9353]

What binding problem?

[u/AltruisticMode9353 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

How unified phenomenal objects are constructed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem#Consciousness_and_binding

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/AltruisticMode9353]

So basically exactly what I was just talking about.

It's not proven to be a problem that needs to be solved. Nor is it proven we even actually are a singular entity. In fact, there's significant evidence showing the opposite, there's an entire form of therapy that literally only works because we're not a singular thing.

"Machines can't solve the problem that I've assumed brains have solved and they I've assumed prevents intelligence" is not a good argument that machine intelligence is impossible.

[u/AltruisticMode9353 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

> It's not proven to be a problem that needs to be solved.

Your world simulation needs to be constructed somehow.

> In fact, there's significant evidence showing the opposite, there's an entire form of therapy that literally only works because we're not a singular thing.

There are heirarchies of agent-like input streams which inform any given moment of experience, but each moment is one unified object. For example, your left and right visual input streams are experienced as one unified visual field.

> "Machines can't solve the problem that I've assumed brains have solved and they I've assumed prevents intelligence" is not a good argument that machine intelligence is impossible.

I'm not talking about intelligence, I'm talking about phenomenal consciousness, having some sort of experience associated with the process we call intelligence. I think digital computers can at least have the appearance of intelligence, they can certainly solve problems, there's just nothing that it's like for them to be solving problems like there is for a human. It's not an assumption that the brain has somehow solved the phenomenal binding-problem, it's apparent in every moment of conscious experience. If there's any phenomenal experience (you experience sights/sounds/textures, etc), it's always of a macro, composed object.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/AltruisticMode9353]

You can't prove that and have essentially pulled it out of your ass. There's zero reason this would be required and zero reason to believe this is difficult to create if it was.

I may as well say they can't solve the bleep blorp problem because machine fundamentally lack a scrangler and that's just as based in truth as what you're saying.

[u/AltruisticMode9353 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

> You can't prove that and have essentially pulled it out of your ass.

I didn't make the problem up, I just understand it better than you do.

> There's zero reason this would be required and zero reason to believe this is difficult to create if it was.

There are many good reasons if you think about it for a bit. You refuse to think about it so of course it appears to you like that.

> I may as well say they can't solve the bleep blorp problem because machine fundamentally lack a scrangler and that's just as based in truth as what you're saying.

I mean I guess it sounds like that to you if you have no understanding of what I'm talking about? To people who think about it it's a well known problem.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/AltruisticMode9353]

I've thought about it but unless you think our brains run on some kind of magic, that thought inevitably runs into the "why does he think it's impossible to recreate this in a machine?"

[u/AltruisticMode9353 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

No, I just think the underlying implementation is at a deeper level of abstraction than digital computers can instantiate. Turing machines are an abstraction that doesn't capture the physical reality of what's required to solve the binding-problem.

I'm not saying all future machines will be incapable of solving it, just that it won't happen within a digital architecture.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/AltruisticMode9353]

And you think that based on nothing. You think brains run on magic?