Ah so your objection is that the issue is not important enough to compare to slavery in this way? Interesting, wasn’t expecting that here. Are you saying that more EAs would have been abolitionists because slavery was a tangible harm? Looking around at the number of EAs who aren’t vegetarians or animal donors I’m not so sure of that.
The people who want to work with the system on AI Safety generally do believe AI risk is that important, though. Or at least they say that.
In my vocabulary, “abolitionist” means “person who is opposed to slavery” (e.g. “would vote to abolish slavery”). My sense is that this is the common meaning of the term, but let me know if you disagree.
It seems, then, that the analogy would be “person who is opposed to factory farming” (e.g. “would vote to outlaw factory farms”), instead of “vegetarian” and “animal donor”. The latter two are much higher standards, as they require personal sacrifice (in the same way that “not consuming products made with slave labor” was a much higher standard—one that very few people held themselves to).
The vast majority of EAs oppose factory farming, and I think they would have also supported the abolition of slavery.
Ah so your objection is that the issue is not important enough to compare to slavery in this way? Interesting, wasn’t expecting that here. Are you saying that more EAs would have been abolitionists because slavery was a tangible harm? Looking around at the number of EAs who aren’t vegetarians or animal donors I’m not so sure of that.
The people who want to work with the system on AI Safety generally do believe AI risk is that important, though. Or at least they say that.
In my vocabulary, “abolitionist” means “person who is opposed to slavery” (e.g. “would vote to abolish slavery”). My sense is that this is the common meaning of the term, but let me know if you disagree.
It seems, then, that the analogy would be “person who is opposed to factory farming” (e.g. “would vote to outlaw factory farms”), instead of “vegetarian” and “animal donor”. The latter two are much higher standards, as they require personal sacrifice (in the same way that “not consuming products made with slave labor” was a much higher standard—one that very few people held themselves to).
The vast majority of EAs oppose factory farming, and I think they would have also supported the abolition of slavery.
What’s your point? Tolerating slavery would have been fine as long as they thought it was wrong in theory?
No, just that, contra your title, most EAs would have been abolitionists, the way that I understand the word “abolitionist” to be used.
Cool, let’s just redefine “alignment” and call it a day. Wait, isn’t that kind of what you’re doing?