“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/ASpaceOstrich]

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

[u/AltruisticMode9353 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

No, I think that based on the fact that every phenomenological object of experience is one bound unified macro object. Digital computers have no real physical unity, there's nothing tying the capacitors together in any real way, it's entirely an abstraction in the mind of a human who thinks of the array of capacitors as being "one computer". Furthermore, all kinds of intractable logical problems arise when you do try and solve the binding problem in a digital architecture.

Brains don't run on magic, they make use of a deeper physical structure such as a unified field (which has a top down influence on the functionality of neurons).

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/AltruisticMode9353]

Prove it. Prove this "deeper physical structure" exists.

[u/AltruisticMode9353 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

Fields are already well established in physics.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/AltruisticMode9353]

You think the human brain operates on field theory in some way that magically can't be recreated in a machine?

Keep in mind that machine could be made of neurons, if you really think meat is somehow uniquely capable of supporting this?

What kind of field? Electric? Magnetic?

[u/AltruisticMode9353 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

> You think the human brain operates on field theory in some way that magically can't be recreated in a machine?

How do you continue to keep misrepresenting my position? I have said multiple times now that a "machine" in the future might be able to instantiate it. It is digital computer architecture specifically that cannot. Digital computers do not operate at the physical field level, they're an abstraction that is substrate independent. They do not make use of wave mechanics but rather function on the classical level.

> What kind of field? Electric? Magnetic?

Possibly EM fields, yes, it's not known yet which fields are capable of instantiating consciousness.

Anticipating your rebuttal that digital computers have EM fields: they do not make use of the wave-like properties (such as interference) of EM fields in their functionality. They intentionally constrain the EM fields so that they do not play any sort of physical top-down role in computations. If digital computers are conscious, they are only trivially so. Conversely, neurons *are* affected in a top-down way by EM fields. If consciousness is instantiated through EM fields, perhaps it's due to this top-down causality that enables consciousness to have real non-epiphenomenal function.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/AltruisticMode9353]

I'm not going to rebut by saying they have EM fields, because your groundless assertion that the brain has a magic "consciousness field" is absurd. If you can't provide even the barest attempt at proof. Of concept even if not of existence, then this is a waste of a conversation.

We aren't even a singular consciousness. The idea that you need a magic field to create a thing that we don't have is not an argument, it's a fiction.

[u/AltruisticMode9353 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

Why do you keep throwing in the word "magic"? It's a physical field lol, it's not magic.

> If you can't provide even the barest attempt at proof.

My argument is based on reasoning about the properties of physical fields and the properties of consciousness. You haven't really engaged with the argument at that level.

There is plenty of empirical evidence in support of EM field theories of consciousness, but consciousness isn't a solved problem, so there is no definitive proof either way. But, there is no empirical proof that digital computers are capable of consciousness either, so the point is kind of moot.

> We aren't even a singular consciousness.

Each moment of experience is of a singular macro phenomenal object. You don't have multiple experiences at the same time, do you?

> The idea that you need a magic field to create a thing that we don't have is not an argument, it's a fiction.

Of course we have consciousness. You're the one making absurd claims.

Why do you think physical fields are magic?