In addition, we’d like to adapt the work we’ve been doing on our Digital Consciousness Model for the MWP, which uses a Bayesian approach.
I do not see much value in improving the estimates for the probability of sentience presented in your book. I believe it is more important to decrease the uncertainty in the (expectedhedonistic) welfare per unit time conditional on sentience, which I think is much larger than that in the probability of sentience.
I also worry about analysing just the probability of consciousness/​sentience due to this not being independent from the welfare per unit time conditional on consciousness/​sentience. Less strict operationalisations of the probability of consciousness/​sentience will tend to result in a lower welfare per unit time conditional on consciousness/​sentience.
Funding is, and long has been, the bottleneck
Have large funders explained their lack of interest? If not, what is your best guess?
Sorry, Vasco; we weren’t clear. The idea is to use the DCM as a blueprint for aggregating the data we collected in the MWP, not to produce new estimates of sentience. The focus would be on capacity for welfare.
Hi Bob.
I do not see much value in improving the estimates for the probability of sentience presented in your book. I believe it is more important to decrease the uncertainty in the (expected hedonistic) welfare per unit time conditional on sentience, which I think is much larger than that in the probability of sentience.
I also worry about analysing just the probability of consciousness/​sentience due to this not being independent from the welfare per unit time conditional on consciousness/​sentience. Less strict operationalisations of the probability of consciousness/​sentience will tend to result in a lower welfare per unit time conditional on consciousness/​sentience.
Have large funders explained their lack of interest? If not, what is your best guess?
Sorry, Vasco; we weren’t clear. The idea is to use the DCM as a blueprint for aggregating the data we collected in the MWP, not to produce new estimates of sentience. The focus would be on capacity for welfare.
I see. Thanks for clarifying.