Thoughtful post, thank you for sharing. I am only doing an exploratory reading of material covering the intersection of EA and religion at this point, so I can’t speak very well the to alignment issue. I agree with those who suggest that religious ethicists would want the AI to explain its reasoning.
What immediately comes to mind in response to your problem statement is the number of different Christianities and Buddhisms (to name the familiar) that are out there, many with their own theology/doctrine—and within each, you also have consequential stratification by education level, and then division on the grounds of conservative and liberal interpretations. I don’t think a consensus set of religious ethics would look substantially different from secular ethics, and it may in fact have fewer constraints.
If you want a perspective on the value of AI safety from Christian theology (following the thought of Thomas Aquinas), you could read Stefan Riedener’s essay on EA, “Human Extinction from a Thomist Perspective,” pp187-210 in the book:
Roser, Dominic, Stefan Riedener, and Markus Huppenbauer. 2022. “Effective Altruism and Religion: Synergies, Tensions, Dialogue.” First, Pano-Verlag.
Thoughtful post, thank you for sharing. I am only doing an exploratory reading of material covering the intersection of EA and religion at this point, so I can’t speak very well the to alignment issue. I agree with those who suggest that religious ethicists would want the AI to explain its reasoning.
What immediately comes to mind in response to your problem statement is the number of different Christianities and Buddhisms (to name the familiar) that are out there, many with their own theology/doctrine—and within each, you also have consequential stratification by education level, and then division on the grounds of conservative and liberal interpretations. I don’t think a consensus set of religious ethics would look substantially different from secular ethics, and it may in fact have fewer constraints.
If you want a perspective on the value of AI safety from Christian theology (following the thought of Thomas Aquinas), you could read Stefan Riedener’s essay on EA, “Human Extinction from a Thomist Perspective,” pp187-210 in the book:
Roser, Dominic, Stefan Riedener, and Markus Huppenbauer. 2022. “Effective Altruism and Religion: Synergies, Tensions, Dialogue.” First, Pano-Verlag.
https://smile.amazon.com/Effective-Altruism-Religion-Synergies-Tensions/dp/3290220672/ref=monarch_sidesheet