Ronen Bar

• Ronen Bar 29 Jun 2025 14:42 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Beyond Singularity’s comment on: De­bate: Mo­ral­ity is Objective

  I don’t think this large-scale cooperation or society or groups function is morality. It is linked to morality but it is fundamentally something else. A society can “function” well with having part of it suffer tremendously for the benefit of another group. There is nothing objective with longing for a world with less suffering, it is basically in another realm, not in the one of math or rational, though it is tied to rationality in some way

• Ronen Bar 29 Jun 2025 6:34 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Beyond Singularity’s comment on: In­ter­stel­lar travel will prob­a­bly doom the long-term future

  I agree when thinking about the long future we have to have better more robust moral frameworks and the time and moral circle expansion are very crucial factors that have to be taken into consideration

• Ronen Bar 29 Jun 2025 6:29 UTC

  5 points

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  in reply to: Beyond Singularity’s comment on: De­bate: Mo­ral­ity is Objective

  I tend to think the word objective doesn’t fit morality from a philosophical standpoint. “objective” truths are arguments that we can decide upon who is right by checking predictions, each of them is evidence for the validity of a claim. If I say earth is round, we can check this claim by talking to experts or flying to space and looking at earth, etc. All of which are prediction of subjective experiences we will have.
  
  So “objective” argument means I am guessing something about the future world, that it will look one way and not another. Morality is in a totally different domian. I would like the future world to be with less suffering and not more, but this is a longing, not a prediction that can be refuted. So with morality there is some sense of logic and being systematic, but at the core it is not an objective question becasue it can’t be decided upon with predictions

• Ronen Bar 26 Jun 2025 15:11 UTC

  1 point

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  on: Should we launch the “An­i­mal Ad­vo­cacy Corps”? Seek­ing Feed­back and a Founder

  Very interesting idea that could improve the worldwide interconnectedness of the movement. I like it very much.

• Ronen Bar 24 Jun 2025 8:13 UTC

  2 points

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  on: Beyond Short-Ter­mism: How δ and w Can Real­ign AI with Our Values

  Thanks. I think as time horizon gets bigger, uncertainty may also get bigger, and this should be calculated into the expected value formula.

• Ronen Bar 18 Jun 2025 17:37 UTC

  5 points

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  in reply to: nathan98000’s comment on: Mo­ral Align­ment: An Idea I’m Em­bar­rassed I Didn’t Think of Myself

  I don’t think we need to solve ethics in order to work on improving the ethics of models. Ethics may be something unsolvable, yet some AI models are and will be instilled with some values, or there will be some system to decide on the value section problem. I think more people need to work on that.
  Just now a great post relating to the value selection problem was published :
  Beyond Short-Termism: How δ and w Can Realign AI with Our Values
  

• Ronen Bar 18 Jun 2025 8:51 UTC

  2 points

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  in reply to: ChrisPercy’s comment on: Will Sen­tience Make AI’s Mo­ral­ity Bet­ter?

  An ASI may be much smarter in helping oneself not feel so much suffering. We as humans are good in engineering our environment, but not the inside. AI may excel in inner engineering as well… very speculative

• Ronen Bar 18 Jun 2025 8:47 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: VeryJerry’s comment on: How the veil of ig­no­rance grounds sentientism

  Sure, I am happy to do that.

• Ronen Bar 17 Jun 2025 10:49 UTC

  4 points

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  on: Sen­tience-Based Align­ment Strate­gies: Should we try to give AI gen­uine em­pa­thy/​com­pas­sion?

  Thanks, very interesting post.
  
  I think this is a crucial question that demands much more research. The fear the digital minds will suffer is a great concern of mine, but also from this perspective I fear that an ASI which is not sentient may not have a robust morality, no intrinsic morality, hence may in the long run not care about biological and digital suffering.
  
  I tried to map the main questions arising from this topic in this post Will Sentience Make AI’s Morality Better?

• Ronen Bar 4 Jun 2025 7:30 UTC

  4 points

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  on: How the veil of ig­no­rance grounds sentientism

  Thanks, interesting post, and I wonder how this can relate to AI and the ethical questions around AI vales

Will Sen­tience Make AI’s Mo­ral­ity Bet­ter?

• Ronen Bar 7 May 2025 5:32 UTC

  2 points

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  on: How the Hu­man Psy­cholog­i­cal “Pro­gram” Un­der­mines AI Align­ment — and What We Can Do

  How do you think we can align humans with their own best values? is it more of a outside of the AI space societal work or is it also tied to the AI space?
  
  I think they are both connected and we should work on both, and we really need a new story as a species for us to be able to rise up to this challenge.

• Ronen Bar 17 Apr 2025 12:00 UTC

  2 points

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  in reply to: VeryJerry’s comment on: Devel­op­ing AI Safety: Bridg­ing the Power-Ethics Gap (In­tro­duc­ing New Con­cepts)

  And thinking more long term, when AGI builds a superintelligence, that will build the next agents, and humans are somewhere 5-6 scales down the intelligence scale, what chance do we have for moral consideration and care by those superior beings? unless we realize we need to care for all beings, and build an AI that cares for all beings…

• Ronen Bar 17 Apr 2025 11:57 UTC

  1 point

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  on: The ‘Bad Par­ent’ Prob­lem: Why Hu­man So­ciety Com­pli­cates AI Alignment

  I think this “Human Alignment” your talking about is very important and neglected. You don’t hear a many people call for an ethical transformation as a necessary adaptive step to the AGI era…

Devel­op­ing AI Safety: Bridg­ing the Power-Ethics Gap (In­tro­duc­ing New Con­cepts)

• Ronen Bar 12 Apr 2025 4:39 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Karen Singleton’s comment on: Where Are the Older Peo­ple in Our Move­ment?

  I completely agree.

• Ronen Bar 9 Apr 2025 18:35 UTC

  4 points

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  in reply to: jasonk’s comment on: AI Mo­ral Align­ment: The Most Im­por­tant Goal of Our Generation

  Thanks Jason.

  Yes, I agree that a “woke” backlash is a significant risk. I think the first step is research to define what a sentient-centric AI truly is: what is the vision and how it behaves in a world full of conflicts of interest between humans and animals.

  In my view, the answer must be an AI that uplifts humanity and strengthens safety for humans too. A kind AI that aims for gradual change, and that, to an extent, accepts the reality that our current civilization is built on harming animals. We need an AI that helps shift this, but patiently and strategically.

  I know it sounds grand, but I think as humanity, we need a new narrative, and probably the AI era will bring a new narrtaive anyway. So we should promote the stewardship narrative toward all sentient beings. If we are building something godlike, it makes sense that we grow into this kind of responsibility. This AI for sentientkind movement isn’t about “going vegan” and because of that it may trigger less public resistance. and this could tap into the compassion many people already have.

  The hope is that with the tremendous power AI will give humans, to reshape both the world and themselves, the conflict of interest with animals will shrink dramatically, making it easier to accept and implement change.

• Ronen Bar 4 Apr 2025 6:43 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Beyond Singularity’s comment on: AI Mo­ral Align­ment: The Most Im­por­tant Goal of Our Generation

  That is a great idea, thanks for all your remarks. I would be happy to hear more about your vision for this, will DM you, hope it is OK.

• Ronen Bar 4 Apr 2025 6:38 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: VeryJerry’s comment on: AI Mo­ral Align­ment: The Most Im­por­tant Goal of Our Generation

  I think creating content on these topics is very valuable, and I am happy to brainstorm other options. I will also do a post on possible interventions.

• Ronen Bar 2 Apr 2025 5:50 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: SiobhanBall’s comment on: AI Mo­ral Align­ment: The Most Im­por­tant Goal of Our Generation

  Thanks for the feedback!!
  
  ”we already can’t agree as humans on what is moral”
  
  I don’t the fact that all humankind can’t agree on a specific set of morals, tough many things are quite in consensus, at least in the west, prevent AGI or ASI from having a set of value. They are baking morals into those models, so the question in—what will those values be? and they are already not the values of the median worldwide person but more like the values of the median person in San Francisco (e.g. the models are very LGBTQ+ friendly)

  “Why would they build something that could disobey them and potentially betray them for some greater good that they might not agree with?”
  
  I am not suggesting they build something that will betray the creators of the models, and one of the goals of AI alignment research is how to make models corrigible—so humans can change their set of values and not get stuck with something (What is value lock-in? (YouTube video)). We need to convince the leaders of AI companies and regulators to align models with a Sentientism worldview (because of morality, because of public demand for this, because it is a robust way to keep humans safe, and more).
  
  ”I’m mindful of the risk of confusion as one commenter mentioned that MA could be synonymous with social alignment. I think a different term is needed. ”

  That is a great point, and I didn’t make this clear in the post. Moral Alignment is the field focused on the question what are the right values, the true moral values, that we should align AI to. Within that there could be different views, and I think the stance of most people in our community is the promote the Sentientism view. Moral Alignment differs from AI technical Alignment since technical alignment focus on making AI do what we want, and MA focus on—what do we want?
  I would be glad to hear more alternative ideas for concepts, if you have some. I am going to do interviews with relevant people to get some structured feedback on several possible terms. I am not set yet on any term

  So you would call this Sentient beings sentinel? I like this play of words and also wrote something using it. I see the sentientist value alignment as inside MA.
  
  “The vast majority of humans still don’t rate animal sentience as being a good enough reason to stop killing them en masse, so it’s unlikely that they’re going to care about it when developing AI.”
  I think the majority does care about animals and would want AI to care about them. ppls states values are better, much better, than their deeds. This movement is not about asking ppl to go vegan, it is about striving to take the good stewardship role that humanity has long dreamed of in ancient books and stories.
  
  “what does MA seek to achieve, that isn’t already the focal point of AI for Animals? If I’ve understood correctly, you want MA to be a broader umbrella term for works which AI for Animals contributes to.”

  Yes, MA is about animals, humans, future digital minds, and anybody that can feel. It is the space that tries works on the question—what values should we align AI to? and Sentientism is the worldview that I hope many people will promote.
  
  I think there is a lot of work to be done in this space, some of it is about bringing more talent and money, some of it is about promoting the interests of all the groups altogether (e.g. how does a sentient-centric AI behaves? it is a crucial question that is not being researched), some is specific intervention e.g. we need to convince AI companies to have a clear stance on non-humans. They currentl don’t.