Would you ask a genie to give you the solution to alignment?

post by sudo · 2022-08-24T01:29:17.631Z · LW · GW · No comments

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A magical genie shows up at your bedroom window. Nobody has bothered to align this genie [LW · GW]. 

Would you try asking this genie for the solution to AI Alignment? 

Your answer to this question should mirror your response to many proposals for Godzilla Strategies [LW · GW].

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answer by JBlack · 2022-08-24T07:06:54.965Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I don't think it would make any meaningful difference whether I asked or not. In this hypothetical, there's an unaligned magical genie on the loose! I probably won't ask it anything, and hope that it goes away instead of responding to whatever sleep-addled nonsense I happen to think up on the spot.

If I asked it to solve anything, it would probably be the genie alignment problem. AI alignment is a potential future existential risk, while an unaligned being of immense magical power is a definite right now existential risk.

It's just going to do whatever it's inclined to do anyway, but maybe there's a microscopic chance that "whatever it's inclined to do" happens to be "what I'd like it to do when I ask". It almost certainly won't be, but I figure that maybe there's a better chance than many of the other things I might do in response to a genie showing up at my bedroom window.

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