The most famous thought experiment in AI safety comes in two versions. One empties the universe. The other fills it with grins. The second is worse. The smiley face was commissioned in 1963 by an insurance company that wanted its employees to look happier after an unpopular merger. It has been standing in for happiness…
Concerning sentient AI, we would like to avoid unnecessary suffering in artificial systems. It’s hard for biological systems like humans to turn off suffering without appropriate pharmacology i.e. from aspirin to anesthetics etc. AI may be able to self administer pain killers – a kind of wireheading in reverse. Similarly to wireheading in AI systems…
David Pearce in interview on the The Anatomy of Happiness. While researching epilepsy, neuroscientist Itzhak Fried stumbled on a ‘mirth’ center in the brain – given this, what ought we be doing to combat extreme suffering and promote wellbeing? 0:00 Mastery of reward circuitry 0:25 Itzhak Fried’s experiments on stimulating ‘the Humor Centre’ of the…
Suffering is generally bad – Peter Singer (who is a Hedonistic Utilitarian), and most Effective Altruists would agree with this. Though in addressing the need for suffering today Peter acknowledges that, as we are presently constituted, suffering is useful as a warning sign (e.g. against further injury). But what about the future? What if we…
Moral philosophers Peter Singer & David Pearce discuss some of the long term issues with various forms of utilitarianism, the future of predation and utilitronium shockwaves. Topics Covered – long term impacts of various forms of utilitarianism – Consciousness – Artificial Intelligence – Reducing suffering in the long run and in the short term –…
We discussed Brian’s background, why he is very motivated to reduce suffering, various (sometimes un-intuitive) forms of suffering, utilitarianism (negative, hedonistic, and novelty [inc whether to intrinsically value novelty]), fun theory, axiological quests that we and/or advanced AI’s might make to learn more about what to value in the future, physics of suffering, emergentism (strong…
Aubrey de Grey is the chief science officer of the SENS Research Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) public charity that is transforming the way the world researches and treats age-related disease. The research SENS funds at universities around the world and at SENS own Research Center uses regenerative medicine to repair the damage…