In short, it seems to me that if you buy into this post, then the next step should be to figure out how human social instincts work, not just qualitatively but in enough detail to write it into AGI source code.
I claim that this is an open problem, involving things like circuits in the hypothalamus and neuropeptide receptors in the striatum. And it’s the main thing that I’m working on myself.
Additionally, there are several very good reasons to work on the human social instincts problem, even if you don’t buy into other parts of David Jilk’s assertions here.
Additionally, figuring out human social instincts is (I claim) (at least mostly) orthogonal to work that accelerates AGI timelines, and therefore we should all be able to rally around it as a good idea.
Whether we should also try to accelerate anthropomorphic AGI timelines, e.g. by studying the learning algorithms in the neocortex, is bound to be a much more divisive question. I claim that on balance, it’s mostly a very bad idea, with certain exceptions including closed (and not-intended-to-be-published) research projects by safety/alignment-concerned people. [I’m stating this opinion without justifying it.]
I have some discussion of this area in general and one of David Jilk’s papers in particular at my post Two paths forward: “Controlled AGI” and “Social-instinct AGI”.
In short, it seems to me that if you buy into this post, then the next step should be to figure out how human social instincts work, not just qualitatively but in enough detail to write it into AGI source code.
I claim that this is an open problem, involving things like circuits in the hypothalamus and neuropeptide receptors in the striatum. And it’s the main thing that I’m working on myself.
Additionally, there are several very good reasons to work on the human social instincts problem, even if you don’t buy into other parts of David Jilk’s assertions here.
Additionally, figuring out human social instincts is (I claim) (at least mostly) orthogonal to work that accelerates AGI timelines, and therefore we should all be able to rally around it as a good idea.
Whether we should also try to accelerate anthropomorphic AGI timelines, e.g. by studying the learning algorithms in the neocortex, is bound to be a much more divisive question. I claim that on balance, it’s mostly a very bad idea, with certain exceptions including closed (and not-intended-to-be-published) research projects by safety/alignment-concerned people. [I’m stating this opinion without justifying it.]