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I'd hardly call a few sentences spelling it all out.

Your point is one I hear often, especially the "what's the point if the heat death is coming anyway."

Basically your argument lies in the "virtue ethics" category of philosophy which argues that man-qua-man should be the best man possible. Eudaimonia in the Stoic tradition and all of that.

Either that you keep your ideas to yourself mostly

Yes this is the case.



Well, do you have it spelled out somewhere? Want to spell it out? Otherwise, what's the point of bringing it up? Me too am completely unchallenged in my actual viewpoints, but I gotta run. That's pointless.

> Basically your argument lies in the "virtue ethics" category of philosophy which argues that man-qua-man should be the best man possible.

No, my argument is what I actually wrote, in short that I want the psychological problems and the obedience to them sorted out before we magnify it all so much it becomes impossible to sort out.

It's like we're driving this car at on a perfectly straight road at 80 mp/h, and some say "steering locked in, activate nitros" and I'm saying "actually, we're slightly skewed, if we use the nitro before correcting that we'll smash into a tree". And in response I get "oh, so you don't like Jazz" or something equally non-reassuring.


No, I don't have it written out anywhere. I brought it up to test the waters somewhat and see what kind of response I would get. I'm hesitant to write it all out because I expect such a document would just be the source of opposition to implementation. Like putting war plans on the internet. If we make the progress we want I expect heavy opposition. However it's hard to build a movement in the shadows. I'd rather just be building things, and making progress toward the goal like I am now, than doing the politics of creating a movement before we have significant powers.

To your argument, it's the perfectability of man problem. You state the decoupling of psychological problems with some other undefined idealized personhood. It lacks an understanding of cognitive science, behavioral economics and neuroscience in my opinion. I would argue, and the science generally agrees, that those "psychological problems" however defined are the other edge on the sword of intelligence and relative autonomy.

So while you argue that yours is a simple argument is really rooted in an old ideal as I stated, which is neither incompatible with (through transhumanism) nor sufficient for, a practical material transcendent philosophy.


I'm not talking about perfection, I'm talking about not being covered in blood and shit so much of the time is all, about not being scared and driven.

> You state the decoupling of psychological problems with some other undefined idealized personhood.

Can you rephrase that? English isn't my first language, and "stating decoupling of" doesn't parse at all for me. It's like there's a sentence fragment missing.

I can't easily define personhood. I know I'm one, that other people are, and I even know animals I recognize as persons, too. With super small animals and plants it gets tricky, but I don't need to fully define first for it to exist, there is something there. Any theory is an abstraction that never fully matches a reality which would remain unchanged if that theory didn't exist. Any intelligence we see and can make theories about results from actual living entitites. There is absolutely no reason to outright assume it can make sense in a vacuum. What would the AGI be intelligent for? Why wouldn't it just calculate whether the heat death of the universe will happen, and shut off if it comes to the conclusion it will? Nothing it would do would make a difference then. Humans are different, more irrational if you will. I don't believe immortality will ever be achieved, I don't even find it desirable, and still I get out of bed in the morning. Everyone I love will die, and everything I do will turn to dust. I still love and make things.

So, what would that "spark" be for AGI? I just had the dumbest association, in the movie "The Fifth Element" there is this scene where the [I forgot what the name of her role was, the female protagonist anyway] is taking in all the atrocities of humanity and gets kind of frustrated, and doesn't feel like saving them or something like that. Then Bruce Willis kisses her and it's alright. As I said, it's dumb, but still, if all we give an AI is problems, why would it come up with solutions, and not more problems?

> I would argue, and the science generally agrees, that those "psychological problems" however defined are the other edge on the sword of intelligence and relative autonomy.

Obviously a piece of rock doesn't have any of the problems or joys we do, but that doesn't just mean anything and everything just "goes with the territory".

> If we make the progress we want I expect heavy opposition.

And you're just going to steamroll over it? Fantastic. You'll go to the friendly baker next and they'll happily sell you bread because they don't know. And you can't face them one on one, so you have to "achieve significant powers" in the shadows. And you're still not seeing the woods for all the trees. No, it's their fault for not understanding what you're not even telling them.


Can you rephrase that?

Your argument is that we should collectively eliminate psychological problems. However it doesn't state what the idealized person would look like in such a scheme. Nor do I think you could probably do so without invoking what is effectively a deus ex machina - which would effectively be a better entity for which we could emulate, if only in theory. That entity I posit is the AGI.

Why wouldn't it just calculate whether the heat death of the universe will happen, and shut off if it comes to the conclusion it will? Nothing it would do would make a difference then.

What a fantastic result then! To have a more concrete proof of the Absurdist reality of our universe. This would be a great outcome to have such certainty around this problem. Indeed what if it calculated some universal existential problem like heat death and then turned itself off (aka suicide)?

No, it's their fault for not understanding what you're not even telling them.

As with most things. Few people understand, or even know of the Haber process and that it is the basis our entire society. Yet we exist in spite of our ignorance.




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