What would the justification standards in wild animal welfare say about uncertainty-laden decisions that involve neither AI nor animals: e.g. as a government, deciding which policies to enact, or as a US citizen, deciding who to vote for President?
Yeah, I think this is a feeling that the folks working on bracketing are trying to capture: that in quotidian decision-making contexts, we generally use the factors we aren’t clueless about (@Anthony DiGiovanni—I think I recall a bracketing piece explicitly making a comparison to day-to-day decision making, but now can’t find it… so correct me if I’m wrong!). So I’m interested to see how that progresses.
I think the vast majority of people making decisions about public policy or who to vote for either aren’t ethically impartial, or they’re “spotlighting”, as you put it. I expect the kind of bracketing I’d endorse upon reflection to look pretty different from such decision-making.
That said, maybe you’re thinking of this point I mentioned to you on a call: I think even if someone is purely self-interested (say), they plausibly should be clueless about their actions’ impact on their expected lifetime welfare, because of strange post-AGI scenarios (or possible afterlives, simulation hypotheses, etc.).[1] See this paper. So it seems like the justification for basic prudential decision-making might have to rely on something like bracketing, as far as I can tell. Even if it’s not the formal theory of bracketing given here. (I have a draft about this on the backburner, happy to share if interested.)
I used to be skeptical of this claim, for the reasons argued in this comment. I like the “impartial goodness is freaking weird” intuition pump for cluelessness given in the comment. But I’ve come around to thinking “time-impartial goodness, even for a single moral patient who might live into the singularity, is freaking weird”.
I think the vast majority of people making decisions about public policy or who to vote for either aren’t ethically impartial, or they’re “spotlighting”, as you put it. I expect the kind of bracketing I’d endorse upon reflection to look pretty different from such decision-making.
But suppose I want to know who of two candidates to vote for, and I’d like to incorporate impartial ethics into that decision. What do I do then?
That said, maybe you’re thinking of this point I mentioned to you on a call
Hmm, I don’t recall this; another Eli perhaps? : )
@Eli Rose🔸 I think Anthony is referring to a call he and I had :)
@Anthony DiGiovanni I think I meant more like there was a justification of the basic intuition bracketing is trying to capture as being similar to how someone might make decisions in their life, where we may also be clueless about many of the effects of moving home or taking a new job, but still move forward. But I could be misremembering! Just read your comment more carefully and I think you’re right that this conversation is what I was thinking of.
I think the vast majority of people making decisions about public policy or who to vote for either aren’t ethically impartial, or they’re “spotlighting”, as you put it. I expect the kind of bracketing I’d endorse upon reflection to look pretty different from such decision-making.
That said, maybe you’re thinking of this point I mentioned to you on a call: I think even if someone is purely self-interested (say), they plausibly should be clueless about their actions’ impact on their expected lifetime welfare, because of strange post-AGI scenarios (or possible afterlives, simulation hypotheses, etc.).[1] See this paper. So it seems like the justification for basic prudential decision-making might have to rely on something like bracketing, as far as I can tell. Even if it’s not the formal theory of bracketing given here. (I have a draft about this on the backburner, happy to share if interested.)
I used to be skeptical of this claim, for the reasons argued in this comment. I like the “impartial goodness is freaking weird” intuition pump for cluelessness given in the comment. But I’ve come around to thinking “time-impartial goodness, even for a single moral patient who might live into the singularity, is freaking weird”.
But suppose I want to know who of two candidates to vote for, and I’d like to incorporate impartial ethics into that decision. What do I do then?
Hmm, I don’t recall this; another Eli perhaps? : )
@Eli Rose🔸 I think Anthony is referring to a call he and I had :)
@Anthony DiGiovanni
I think I meant more like there was a justification of the basic intuition bracketing is trying to capture as being similar to how someone might make decisions in their life, where we may also be clueless about many of the effects of moving home or taking a new job, but still move forward. But I could be misremembering!Just read your comment more carefully and I think you’re right that this conversation is what I was thinking of.Oh woops didn’t look at parent comment, haah