The point I was trying to make is that natural selection isn’t a “mechanism” in the right sense at all. it’s a causal/historical explanation not an account of how values are implemented. What is the evidence from evolution? The fact that species with different natural histories end up with different values really doesn’t tell us much without a discussion of mechanisms. We need to know 1) how different are the mechanisms actually used to point biological and artificial cognitive systems toward ends and 2) how many possible mechanisms to do so are there.
The fact that we don’t have a good understanding of how values form even in the biological domain is a reason for pessimism, not optimism.
One reason for pessimism would be that human value learning has too many messy details. But LLMs are already better behaved than anything in the animal kingdom besides humans and are pretty good at intuitively following instructions, so there is not much evidence for this problem. If you think they are not so brainlike, then this is evidence that not-so-brainlike mechanisms work. And there are also theories that value learning in current AI works roughly similarly to value learning in the brain.
Which is just to say I don’t see the prior for pessimism, just from looking at evolution.
Hi. I’m looking for career advice. I am 25 with no college degree and little work experience (I am currently employed as a cashier). What would be the best strategy for me if I’m looking to make a large amount of money to give to charity after TAI? My timelines are fairly short, maybe around 5-10 years. I think the chance of human extinction from misaligned AI is very low but am worried about s-risks (sadistic humans torturing digital minds, continuation of wild animal suffering, etc.). Influencing these things now seems hard but may be easier in the future with a clearer picture of things so I want to save up.
One career option that has been suggested is entering a trade, such as electrical or HVAC work. It is possible that wages for skilled manual labor will rise as intellectual work becomes automated, additionally a construction boom for datacenters could drive demand. Alternatively, I could try to become a software engineer. I’d be very grateful for comments or suggestions .