Do the concepts behind AGI safety only make sense if you have roughly the same worldview as the top AGI safety researchers—secular atheism and reductive materialism/physicalism and a computational theory of mind?
Can you highlight some specific AGI safety concepts that make less sense without secular atheism, reductive materialism, and/or computational theory of mind?
I’d like to underline that I’m agnostic, and I don’t know what the true nature of our reality is, though lately I’ve been more open to anti-physicalist views of the universe.
For one, if there’s a continuation of consciousness after death then AGI killing lots of people might not be as bad as when there is no continuation of consciousness after death. I would still consider it very bad, but mostly because I like this world and the living beings in it and would not like them to end, but it wouldn’t be the end of consciousnesses like some doomy AGI safety people imply.
Another thing is that the relationship between consciousness and the physical universe might be more complex than physicalists say—like some of the early figures of quantum physics thought—and there might unknown to current science factors at play that could have an effect on the outcome. I don’t have more to say about this because I’m uncertain what the relationship between consciousness and the physical universe might be in such a view.
And lastly, if there’s God or gods or something similar, such beings would have agency and could have an effect on what the outcome might be. For example, there are Christian eschatological views that say that the Christian prophecies about the New Earth and other such things must come true in some way, so the future cannot end in a total extinction of all human life.
Do the concepts behind AGI safety only make sense if you have roughly the same worldview as the top AGI safety researchers—secular atheism and reductive materialism/physicalism and a computational theory of mind?
Can you highlight some specific AGI safety concepts that make less sense without secular atheism, reductive materialism, and/or computational theory of mind?
I’d like to underline that I’m agnostic, and I don’t know what the true nature of our reality is, though lately I’ve been more open to anti-physicalist views of the universe.
For one, if there’s a continuation of consciousness after death then AGI killing lots of people might not be as bad as when there is no continuation of consciousness after death. I would still consider it very bad, but mostly because I like this world and the living beings in it and would not like them to end, but it wouldn’t be the end of consciousnesses like some doomy AGI safety people imply.
Another thing is that the relationship between consciousness and the physical universe might be more complex than physicalists say—like some of the early figures of quantum physics thought—and there might unknown to current science factors at play that could have an effect on the outcome. I don’t have more to say about this because I’m uncertain what the relationship between consciousness and the physical universe might be in such a view.
And lastly, if there’s God or gods or something similar, such beings would have agency and could have an effect on what the outcome might be. For example, there are Christian eschatological views that say that the Christian prophecies about the New Earth and other such things must come true in some way, so the future cannot end in a total extinction of all human life.