(Cross-posted from my website. Podcast version here, or search "Joe Carlsmith Audio" on your podcast app.

This essay is part of a series I'm calling "Otherness and control in the age of AGI." I'm hoping that the individual essays can be read fairly well on their own, but see here for a summary of the essays that have been released thus far.)

In my last essay, I discussed a certain kind of momentum, in some of the philosophical vibes underlying the AI risk discourse,[1] towards deeming more and more agents – including: human agents – "misaligned" in the sense of: not-to-be-trusted to optimize the universe hard according to their values-on-reflection. We can debate exactly how much mistrust to have in different cases, here, but I think the sense in which AI risk issues can extend to humans, too, can remind us of the sense in which AI [...]

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Outline:

(01:31) Utilitarian vices

(10:10) Boundaries

(25:38) What if the humans-who-like-paperclips get a bunch of power, though?

(31:46) An aside on AI sentience

(36:41) Giving AIs-with-different-values a stake in civilization

(43:00) The power of niceness, community, and civilization

(49:26) Is niceness enough?

The original text contained 32 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
January 16th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rdTgtHn3neGzkyCrL/being-nicer-than-clippy

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Being nicer than Clippy” by Joe Carlsmith

LessWrong (30+ Karma)