this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
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I spend a lot of time campaigning for animal rights. These criticisms also apply to it but I don't consider it a strong argument there. EA's spend an estimated 1.8 million dollar per year (less than 1%, so nowhere near a majority) on "other longterm" which presumably includes simulated humans, but an estimated 55 million dollar per year (or 13%) on farmed animal welfare (for those who are curious, the largest recipient is global health at 44%, but it's important to note that it seems like the more people are into EA the less they give to that compared to more longtermist causes). Farmed animals "don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct, they don't need money, they don't bring cultural baggage..." yet that doesn't mean they aren't a worthy cause. This quote might serve as something members should keep in mind, but I don't think it works as an argument on its own.
Oh it's way more than this. The linked stats are already way out of date, but even in 2019 you can see existential risk rapidly accelerating as a cause, and as you admit much moreso with the hardcore EA set.
As for what simulated humans have to do with existential risk, you have to look to their utility functions: they explicitly weigh the future pleasure of these now-hypothetical simulations as outweighing the suffering of any and all present or future flesh bags.
Do you have a source for this 'majority' claim? I tried searching for more up to date data but this less comprehensive 2020 data is even more skewed towards Global development (62%) and animal welfare (27.3%) with 18.2% for long term and AI charities (which is not equivalent to simulated humans, because it also includes climate change, nearterm AI problems, pandemics etc). Utility of existential risk reduction is basically always based on population growth/ future generations (aka humans) and not simulations. 'digital person' only has 25 posts on the EA forum (by comparison, global health and development has 2097 post). It seems unlikely to me that this is a majority belief.
Short answer: "majority" is hyperbolic, sure. But it is an elite conviction espoused by leading lights like Nick Beckstead. You say the math is "basically always" based on flesh and blood humans but when the exception is the ur-texts of the philosophy, counting statistics may be insufficient. You can't really get more inner sanctum than Beckstead.
Hell, even 80000 hours (an org meant to be a legible and appealing gateway to EA) has openly grappled with whether global health should be deprioritized in favor of so-called suffering-risks, exemplified by that episode of Black Mirror where Don Draper indefinitely tortures a digital clone of a woman into subjugation. I can't find the original post, formerly linked to from their home page, but they do still link to this talk presenting that original scenario as a grave issue demanding present-day attention.