[SEQ RERUN] Moral Error and Moral Disagreement

When a paperclip maximizer and a pencil maximizer do different things, they are not disagreeing about anything, they are just different optimization processes.

Just to make sure I understand this, suppose a pencil maximizer and a paperclip maximizer meet each other while tiling deep space. They communicate (or eat parts of each other and evaluate the algorithms embedded therein) and discover that they are virtually identical except for the pencil/paperclip preference. They further discover that they are both the creation of a species of sentient beings who originated in different galaxies and failed the AI test. The sentient species shared far more in common than the difference in pencil/paperclip preference. Neither can find a flaw in the rationality algorithm that the other employs. Is P(my-primary-goal-should-change) < P(my-primary-goal-should-change | the-evidence-in-this-scenario) for either agent? If not, this implies that the agents believe their primary goal to be arbitrary yet still worth keeping intact forever without change, e.g. pencils and paperclips are their basic morality and there was no simpler basic morality like "do what my creators want me to do" in which case the probability of the paperclip/pencil maximization goal should receive a significant update upon discovering that two different species with so much in common accidentally ordered their own destruction by arbitrary artifacts.

Also, imagine that our basic morality is not as anthropomorphically nice as "What will save my friends, and my people, from getting hurt? How can we all have more fun? ..." and is instead "What will most successfully spread my genetic material?". The nice anthropomorphic questions we are aware of may only be a good-enough approximation of our true basic morality that we don't have (or need) conscious access to it. Why should we arbitrarily accept the middle level instead of accepting the "abortion is wrong" or "maximize our genetic material" morals at face value?

I find it interesting that single cells got together and built themselves an almost-friendly AI for the propagation of genetic material that is now talking about replacing genetic material with semiconductors. Or was it the Maximization Of Maximization Memes meme that got the cells going in the first place and is still wildly successful and planning its next conquest?

Eliezer points out that Bob might not (probably doesn't) know all that is entailed by morality_Bob, because morality_Bob is an idealized abstract dynamic. But then, why the _Bob suffix?

Most people conceive morality to involve both personal ideals which can vary from person to person - I might place more emphasis on family, while you focus on athletic excellence - and interpersonal areas like justice in which "we're all in it together." Let's start with the former. If Bob's a family man and Sally's a super-athlete, do they disagree on what is important? Not necessarily; they may well agree that Bob should go to his sister's concert rather than exercise tonight, and Sally should exercise rather than help plan her brother's wedding. Sally feels guilty when she doesn't exercise and Bob says it's appropriate that she feels guilty. And so on. Of course, either or both of them may be mistaken, and they can coherently disagree, but it would be extremely bizarre for Sally to say, "I can see that your idealized abstract dynamic leads to this emphasis on family, but still what you should do is forget all that and strive for athletic excellence."

But what about justice? If their idealized abstract dynamics for "justice" differ, then that really would be a disagreement! Well, OK, but the difference hasn't been shown, and it's not enough to show that their terminal values differ. After all, as we've just discussed, some terminal values are personal ideals that need not bear directly on justice. And since both Bob and Sally conceive justice interpersonally, the idealized abstract dynamic for justice_Bob makes direct reference to that of justice_Sally and vice versa. If when both are at their rational best (edit: and both honestly pursuing justice), Bob can't convince Sally that X is a fair rule and Sally can't convince Bob that Y is a virtue of just persons, then neither X nor Y are mandated by justice. If they want to keep discussing together how to treat each other, they will have to keep looking to find other rules and virtues that they can agree on.

But doesn't this threaten the possibility that "justice" is empty of content altogether; that there's nothing they can agree on? In concept, yes. In practice, I don't see much probability there, given the psychological unity of humanity. (Encounters with aliens are another story, and it may be simply that no justice is to be had there.)

But couldn't psychopaths reject justice altogether? Sure, but that doesn't mean there's a different kind of justice, justice_P, that psychopaths value. It just means that justice doesn't interest them.

With personal ideals, rational difference has been demonstrated to be likely (IMO at least), but difference need not mean disagreement. With justice, rational difference has not been demonstrated to be likely. Therefore I suggest we drop the _Bob and _Sally suffixes until further notice.

When a paperclip maximizer and a pencil maximizer do different things, they are not disagreeing about anything, they are just different optimization processes.

I don't get this. Different optimization processes disagree about what to optimize, no?