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- Hacker News
- For those of us who have read Paul Graham's submarine essay, should the last paragraph be a giveaway? The "AI theoretician's" quote seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the article.by geye1234
- If you're talking about the quote being a giveaway that the article is PR, I'm not following you. The point of the last paragraph is a warning that outsourcing ethical decisions to an AI is likely to result in decisions that one might not actually make and find morally dubious.
And prioritizing Consequentialism in AI, especially with weapons, is a dangerous bargain. "How do you make decisions when the consequences are unclear?" Since when are the full consequences _ever_ clear?
by sdellis - > Paul Graham's submarine essay
To save a few clicks: https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
> [The] PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news. Of the stories you read in traditional media that aren't about politics, crimes, or disasters, more than half probably come from PR firms.
by Terr_ - How much longer until they start hiring the token high school drop out whiz kid, or are they completely skipping that this time around?by bigbuppo
- I'm highly anticipating the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything
On a more serious note, I found this interesting from TFA:
> The biggest question, though, is what sorts of rules should be put in those constitutions in the first place. Philosophers have zeroed in on two main ethical frameworks. One is deontology. Popular with Kant, among others, this imposes strict rules that prohibit things like lying, coercion and treating people as a means rather than an end, even if it is for a greater good. Anthropic’s constitution incorporates many deontological strictures. These can make AI behaviour more consistent, says Dr Powers—a plus for deploying robots in homes and public spaces.
> The other approach to ethics of interest to philosophers of AI is called consequentialism. It weighs costs against benefits to decide what to do. Models more sympathetic to consequentialism include OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Google’s AI models are designed to produce “likely overall benefits [that] substantially outweigh the foreseeable risks”, a classic consequentialist goal.
As a big fan of the trolley problem thought experiment, I am very curious what led to this ethical split between these model makers. I find it darkly humorous and also scary to think about the choices these models could make to influence people and decisions, especially if it's under a utilitarian perspective
by jameslk - I'm sure there are effective altruists on one side of the split and not the other.by bigbuppo
- The trolley problem is probably the most famous thought experiment in ethics, but it doesn't do a good job of distinguishing ethical theories. Both utilitarianism and Kantian deontology agree that it's correct (or at least permissible) to flip the switch. The Kantian argument is that you are not treating the one person merely as a means—you save the five via the second track, and they would still be saved even if the one person wasn't present.
There's a sort of intuitionist deontology that says it is wrong to ever perform an action that causes someone to die, but only 13% of philosophers[1] say you shouldn't switch, compared to 63% who say you should.
- I wonder what it is they feel LLMs can’t do for them and they need a human for? I’d like to see the spec, like are they expecting the philosophers to use Claude all day, maybe in a philosophy harness and will be judged by their token use? Or have they isolated to high value philosophy task that they’ll work on without using AI? I think it would be interesting to contrast with developers and understand how vs philosophers they are seen differently. How much of philosophy is boilerplate vs original thinking and how does it compare to writing software?by andy99
- I think its to identify the capabilities and possibilities (and limitations) for genAI. LLMs can do intellectual grunt work very well, but they dont think, not really, so they cant ideate and design things that havent been built before, like themselvesby samrus
- Given the the labs are trying to create [super] human-like consciousness, partly through the guidance of huge system prompts, and many philosophers are experts in textual descriptions of consciousness it makes senseby maxaw
- I just read an entire book about consciousness [0], and now I understand myself even less.
[0] <https://www.amazon.com/World-Appears-Journey-into-Consciousn...>
My key takeaway was this: I feel, therefore I am; not sure if any more conscious than plants.
- Well that PR is cheaper than buying Johnny Ives for $6 billion. You could probably buy an entire Ivy League philosophy department for 60 million.by elphinstone
- The AI price inflation is unreal. Used to be that you could get the grad students doing all the actual work for the price of a pizza party and alcohol.
- I suppose they should. That seems like the right, or at least a related, discipline for some of the questions raised by ai developments. But i cannot help but feel completely unenthusiastic about the idea of the AI labs controlling the narrative around societal impact of AI.by dbuser99
- They need sociologist of the goal is to mitigate societal impact, not philosophersby dgellow
- Hmm I spent a good amount of time in big tech, now work in AI, and I minored in philosophy at Berkeley back in the day (Parmenides, Socrates, Plato etc.)
How do I align myself with such a job?
by personjerry - Find non-Utilitarian alternative to Effective Altruism by somehow channeling Dostoevsky? Propriety and Reward?
- You need to use everything at your disposal. Wait for the planets to align and the tea leaves to indicate good success. Don't apply until the chicken bones suggest a good time for someone with your constitution. You are going up against a thousand other candidates more or less equally qualified for a highly vague job description and 350k base salary.by asdff
- Genuinely, understanding around philosophy of action has been deeply enriching over my life. To anyone trying to decide on a minor philosophy is always an excellent choice.by munk-a
- Usually you need to be well-published/cited in the field, so a minor would likely not qualify. People joke around, but philosophers are some of the smartest people I've ever met, and it's not even particularly close. (I graduated ~10 years ago, so most of them are sadly lawyers or in academia these days, though some are engineers or entrepreneurs.)by dvt
- Same - philosopher here please hire me. My bachelors thesis was “Wittgensteinian problems for artificial general intelligence.” Three decades working closely with tech and haven’t failed the Turing test yet.
I think SBF and his education from birth (via his mother) in consequentialism should point to the issues made clear when that ethical approach goes wrong or operates from bad, egoistic data, which it’s generally always doing.
by gizajob - This is interesting. Until autumn of 2024, when the company was subsumed into a better-heeled AI-VFX concern, I worked for probably the best-known and earliest all-AI VFX house, whose ethics department was headed by a philosopher, though the company struggled to place him to practical advantage.
The only comment I can make on the general trend is that it's apparently good PR for cash-saturated startups. Ultimately what AI 'means' is certainly not the business of those making it (who are arguably least-qualified to comment); and insider insights offer no benefit that I can discern.
by Hard_Space - >Dr Floridi describes the scale of departures from philosophy departments as a “haemorrhaging”.
I wonder if anyone who is connected with actual academic philosophy can comment on this. I'm pretty skeptical.
This is a field where it is notoriously hard to get a real academic position, I would bet there is no shortage of people for these roles.
by why_at - Maybe it narrows down if you need to bring the right mindset.by ofrzeta
- >hard to get a real academic position
Tech companies like to rob the cradle, and academic departments hire far more grad students and postdocs than professors. Of course, this is also part of the problem with academic careers.
by scythe - It's a ridiculous complaint. They should be overjoyed that companies are hiring academics. It is trivial to fill academic seats with qualified candidates.by esafak
- AI Lab: Say "I am conscious"
LLM: "I am conscious"
Philosopher (Paid by AI Lab): "It is conscious"
by Scalene2 - Prove to me that you are conscious, without referring to the fact that you are a human and have common ground and experiences with other humans.by aperrien
- Absolute cinemaby ares623
- The philosopher paid by Lab will surely “align” with what is good for Lab, but that might be saying “it’s not conscious (simply all powerful)”.by ks2048