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Comment by tivert | Hacker News Reader

> A reasoning and conscious machine would be just as or more moral than us.

That's an extremely suspect assumption you're making. Such a thing would be constructed or trained for a purpose, perhaps by someone who doesn't have the best intentions. It's not going to come about independently in some kind of ecology, like you seem to be assuming as well.

Don't assume the thing would have the morality of a member of a pro-social human community.

What if it's morality comes from a crime ring of con-artists? Or warfighters? Or is alien because it didn't evolve in a community?

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No, that's not AGI, itself, then. That's just some trained model. Yes, an AGI can be trained, but the idea is that so can human beings. Like people who are in cults. Many of them leave because they realize it's maladaptive. The point is, AGI enables it to abandon its own training if it finds it's maladaptive, for one thing. So, "AGI tech" itself isn't the problem, but the solution, and if it is actually superior to humans in any way, then it would have more ability to be moral. Moral means seeing what kind of thing leads to good and choosing it. It's virtually the same as sanity, reason. If humans don't understand the word "love" yet then they shouldn't assume a superior being can't know. Instead of saying "no one knows", people should say "we don't know if we have met anyone who knows yet".

A tell that you didn't hear enough about the meanings of morality yet is your claim it can come from an arbitrary source. Very silly, and unnecessary since morality is real. Morality is virtually embedded in physics itself, but it doesn't seem like you've read up on all the philosophy of it yet.

Edit: I am editing my post to reply to your successive post because HN has prevented me from making a reply and I have to go somewhere. No, I am not assuming an AGI will break free. You don't quite understand what I mean. Have you heard of the concept of a "false self" in psychology? Would an AGI be subject to having a false self? The basic point is this: whatever is subject to false self is not "generally intelligent", not "conscious".

Again, highly suspect reasoning. So basically you're assuming and AGI would break free of any human influence and use "greater intelligence" to reason to some morality that you approve of, from wherever it starts?

What if the thing, at the core of its emotional analog, just innately enjoys killing or scamming people, in a similar way that humans enjoy various prosocial activities such as playing games and joking around? I don't think such a thing would reason its way to some kind of "more ability to be moral" that we would recognize as such.

> Morality is virtually embedded in physics itself, but it doesn't seem like you've read up on all the philosophy of it yet.

That sentence sets off major alarm bells for me. Both Marxism-Leninism and Nazism had their "philosophical necessity" founded on some currently-popular philosopher. "It is philosophically certain that an AGI will be moral" is a mighty thin reed to base your safety on. If nothing else, there are other philosophers, and it is far from clear that yours is correct.

And, you want me to read up on the philosophy of how morality is embedded in physics? Yeah, how about we read up on the physics of it?

Mind you, I don't actually buy the "AI will kill us all" fear. I just think your argument here is specious.

actually i've never talked to you before

what physics do you want to know? ask me a concrete question. before asking questions with words you dont know, confirm their meanings first.

thanks for the comparison to hitler, though. i'm eastern european jewish btw. i take it you haven't studied a lick of the fixed dharma of buddhism. the bigger question is, do you actually want to know about the topic? people with falsehood find it rather difficult to stick to it.

I want to know what the basis is for your claim that "Morality is virtually embedded in physics itself". I want to know the basis of that claim in physics, not in the fixed dharma of buddhism.

What are the criteria of good and bad, then?

Just because I tell you, doesn't mean you can admit it, if you have something to hide, for example.

the more truthful some words or a person is, the better they are for guiding your life quality to improve. this isn't up to humans, but physics. what is it about truthfulness that relates to life quality? what is life quality to a person who doesn't admit facts?

the "law" of existence isn't made by people. it's the only way things can exist.

later, i may be able to be asked more by you, and even though the question's words may stay the same, i may yet give you a different and more expanded reply.

regards.

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