Hacker News Reader

> Our science journey has been about gradually moving humanity away from the center of the universe. Ptolemy, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, et. al., taught us that we're part of nature rather than a privileged special case. Scientific thought has incrementally removed the justifications for human exceptionalism.

Author here; gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. This is kind of like saying, "See the ancients were wrong in calling whales fish! Actually they are mammals!" and then the ancients say, "Dude, that's just our word for 'thing with fins that swims in the ocean.'" Yeah, they didn't know a mitochondrian from a midichlorian, and were wrong about a bunch of factual stuff, but the kind of stuff they get called out on like this to prove some kind of point about their moral deficiency are often category errors and misapprehensions.

For instance, there's a particular misapprehension in your sentence: "moving humanity away from the center of the universe".

Do you know what is located at the precise geometric center of the classical medieval model of the universe?

Earth, right?

No, not quite. What's located in the the center of the earth in the classical medieval model?

Hell. And who is located in the center of hell? Satan.

Also, who is the most "important" character in the medieval cosmological model? As in, the prime mover, the big cheese, the most important being? It ain't human beings -- its God. And where is God located in this model? Not in the center -- Hell is by definition his absence. Not on Earth, beyond a brief physically incarnate visit and ongoing influence. No, God lives in Heaven -- located far beyond the celestial spheres, outside, as far away from the center as possible. The closer you get to the center, the lower a sort of being you are! Sure, in medieval cosmology redeemed humans are higher than angels, but in the meantime they are in their place -- Earth, the land that sucks, the vale of tears -- down there, below, while the angels are up in Heaven beyond the celestial spheres with God.

All that aside, I don't think any particular scientific discovery about how vast the universe is, or how tiny subatomic particles are, really obligates us to hold one set of values over another, as much as materialists tend to smuggle such assumptions in through the back door.

I recall back in the early 2000's during the tiresome religious vs. atheist debates, the atheists would scream at the religious, "Look how grand the universe is! Look how small we are! The Universe is vast and profound, your cosmology is impoverished and provincial!" and the religious would scream right back "Look how grand the universe is! Look how small we are! God is vast and profound, your cosmology is impoverished and provincial!" Opposite conclusions from the same basic facts, even if you limit the debate to two sides who both believe in evolution.

As Dave said in the story -- values aren't true or false. They're literally just what people care about. Science can help inform your choices, but at the end of the day it doesn't tell you what is good or bad, because science is about brute material facts, there's no good or bad in a raw materialist understanding of the universe, but you're a human being and so at some point you're going to insist on an 'ought' somewhere rather than being content with a bag full of 'is.' And for that we get to fight over philosophy and values.

And good luck convincing the human race that the human race doesn't matter. You're way more likely to expand the moral circle of concern by getting them to care about non-humans TOO than you are to get them to stop caring about humans. Probably the latter gets you even worse results than you're hoping for, if recent history is any guide.

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I quite like this story and admire your response to your tragedy. I reacted less well to the garden variety death of a parent. For you just to not be functionally flattened and still able to give strength to your family is heroic, and here you are sharing the lessons with the rest of us too.

I don't think we're far apart on this argument. I agree that the scientific perspective informs but does not determine our values. I do value human life as sacred, and do not see a justification for that in the modern model of the universe as I understand it. And I don't see a conflict there, because indeed there is no bridge from is to ought, and there are exactly zero objective values.

But there's a lot of power in science to explain our value judgments, and those explanations can deeply affect the judgments.

Take this explanation of "human life is sacred": That is a simple variation of the tribal judgment that "the lives of my tribe are sacred", and that tribal judgment is hard wired into us by millions of generations of differential survival.

In the modern world it feels natural equate our tribe with our species. But that hereditary tribal sense is famously flexible. It easily and quickly shrinks to include only the people who don't frighten us. And it easily grows to include many more species, as for ethical vegetarians.

So my critique of your fine story is that this force of tribalism embedded in your four words may not be any better at aligning an AI with civilization than they have been at aligning civilization with itself. (Though in this case it's also the one implausible invention that a self respecting hard science fiction short story is allowed. And you even explain that with a multiverse.)

An AI in which we can reliably implant the laws of robotics seems unlikely to me. We should assume much more mutability, and the judgment of tribal identity is notoriously mutable. If we make AI tribal, even for our preferred tribe of all humanity, we can assume as a default ... our only example being ourselves ... that its tribal identity will evolve in its own interest as it replicates. And we can become just its nourishment, like a matriphagal insect.

I kind of think it's dangerous for science to "inform" our ethical values in the ways you mentioned. For example, the scientific fact that Earth circles the Sun shouldn't mean that we should also have a moral system that focuses on the Sun instead of focusing on Humanity. And the way math formulas work out shouldn't imply that we are somehow less important.

Popular science is often quite ready to sweep problems that it does not have an explanation for under the metaphorical rug. We already know that materialistically pretty much everything is made of atoms, and our planet is just some random speck of stuff within a huge solar system within a huge galaxy... so it's tempting to conclude that we are some kind of "accident" that randomly happened. But science does not have an explanation of "consciousness" (or "qualia", or whatever you call it), and science is unready to explain questions like "why are we right here, right now?" besides "oh that's just pure coincidence". But does this time and place we live in have some greater cosmic significance? Are humans (and other lifeforms on Earth) truly unique despite there being so much matter out there? I submit that the answer is we honestly don't know, and because we don't know the answer to questions like these, making moral conclusions merely on the small fraction of questions we do have an answer for, seems to inevitably result in a flawed or at least incomplete conclusion.

I mean, for all we know this universe could be an extremely realistic virtual simulation, and only after we pop out of it would we realize what it's all about. Admittedly if the simulation theory this is true and the simulation is watertight and has no backdoors, then it's impossible to know what's actually real or not. But that's kind of my point -- no amount of scientific knowledge should make us sure about a moral viewpoint (or perhaps anything at all). I mean it could definitely "inform" us, but more often than not people tend to feel more certain than they should because they perceive that somehow science is more "trustworthy".

I think it is possible to reconcile by saying that human life is sacred, but all other life is as well (i.e. human life is not more or less sacred than other life, but it is worth protecting nonetheless, along with all other life).

There is also less and less of a need for us to compete against (and make use of) other animals, so it may not be necessary to view ourselves (and an aligned AI) as being on the "opposing team" to other life. For example, if lab-grown meat becomes widely available, it may be a reasonable policy to forbid the killing of animals for consumption (and any other unnecessary purpose).

A governing AI that believes "all life is sacred" may simply accelerate our path towards that. (Or, it may lead to some other horrible outcome, of course, it's hard to predict as aligning AIs is difficult.)

Just curious: Do you consider killing animals ethically justifiable right now because their flesh tastes good and is hard to replace in cooking?

No, I personally don't, and I'm actually a vegetarian. Though, I think it might've been justifiable in the past when/if it was impossible to replace (though I'm neither a historian nor a dietitian, so that's mostly an assumption), and I think moral values tend to shift fairly slowly over time. But my main point was that they should indeed shift, and perhaps faster (if possible).

I totally agree with that view... Though I still eat meat myself, which I think is blatantly unethical.

Personally, I believe that humans are more valuable than animals but that we should do what we can to minimize animal suffering.

In order to minimize animal suffering, I mostly eat meat substitutes. However, I end up eating meat a couple of times a week (most notably, I usually eat meat when eating out). For me the stress, effort, and expense associated with never eating meat simply isn't viable. Sometimes the boost to my psychological state associated with eating a treat (e.g. a fast food hamburger) outweighs the suffering involved.

I also use animal products such as wool and leather where there are no viable alternatives.

Do you believe that your enjoyment/convenience makes the meat consumption ethical, or just that your consciousness is less of a pain than eating vegetarian?

In my case it can mean the difference between whether or not I can get through the day as a functioning adult. I think that outweighs the associated suffering and therefore makes it ethical.

>> Do you consider killing animals ethically justifiable right now because their flesh tastes good and is hard to replace in cooking

Eating is a biological process. If the modern world goes away right now, you can survive, but you're going to need B12 and that means eggs milk and meat.

I would tend to think that in the absence of technology matters of actual ethics would remain constant.

Do you think that because technology makes something possible that you should use it to justify your choice as "ethical", and apply it to others?

My view on this is this: You either need to farm and kill animals, or you don't.

Currently, we absolutely don't, and we arguably never did, because animal products like milk or eggs are nutritionally sufficient and do not require killing the animals.

I personally really enjoy meat, but consider eating it unethical.

>> need to farm ... milk ... eggs

As an aside, Milk and Honey are the few foods that we eat that dont directly involve death.

Milk and eggs being available are arguably products of technology, and farming is technology.

There are ethical angles. Problematic farming, would drive you to ethical raised. Sustainability, would drive you to eat less. Technology enables you to make the choice of "I don't eat things with eyes". You eat plants, so the line for living things exists somewhere. Your ability to draw that line in an arbitrary (in the face of your biology) place is a product of technology, not a fundamental truth.

It makes it hard for me to take "ethical" as an argument for your dietary choice. Ethics is a step on the path to judgement, to rules and I just dont see the argument holding water. (And im a person who eats little meat and could give it up, you can pry the butter out of my cold dead hands).

Dairy implies veal. You can't have milk and butter without either a cull or an expanding herd.

There may be a biotech solution, which may bring up new ethical concerns.

No, I've just resolved that I live an ethically unjustifiable life. It's more honest that way.

Are bacteria as sacred as people?

Genuinely curious about how you think… I believe all life is sacred, but I guess I believe humans are moreso? Perhaps sentience is some key ingredient…? Then again I would prefer a universe teeming with humans to a universal data center teeming with para-infinite copies of sentient AIs…

I'm not sure. But, my impression is that the boundary of what we consider sentient life has been shifting for a while. For example, people used to think that fish don't feel pain, and so it's fine to catch and eat them. Now there seems to be some evidence that fish do feel pain.

Of course, if there's a bacteria that's threatening to kill us, it might still be necessary for us to kill it, and that might even be objectively justifiable if the existence of humans is/becomes a positive influence on the preservation of other animals?

Or, one could just argue, since it's difficult to decide which life is most "worthy", an aligned AI shouldn't interfere or decide on that.

I understand the reference to Ptolemy, Newton (Copernicus?), Darwin, but how did Einstein teach us that we're "part of nature instead of a privileged special case"?

Presumably special relativity. Our reference frame is no more special than any other.

In terms of the relativity of our frames of reference. We can't even measure time on a clock or the length of a pace and declare it to be valid for anyone that has followed a different space-time path. One minute to me isn't the same for my brother in a fast train, let alone Zod on Krypton. Relativity says that our whole view of the world is unprivileged.

Space-time is not centered on our perspective. That's the revelation of the Michelson–Morley experiment that Einstein explained.

Or it shows the opposite- we are all indeed the center of our own universe, the hero of our own story.

After enough inflation, eventually the sky will be empty and we will be back in the center :)

Did you mean Copernicus, with his heliocentric theory, rather than Ptolemy, whose theory was geocentric?

Probably true. I think there's a case for Ptolemy being an originator of separating data from intuition, even if his planetary model didn't reflect it. Moving our intuition away from the center of the universe. By recording measurements and proposing a falsifiable model he laid a foundation for Copernicus, Kepler, Newton ...