IanReading #WhatWeOweTheFuture by Will Macaskill mentions unforeseen aspects of #AI and possibly points of no return. If we design systems and let it loose there will be a point where we can’t undo any errors. Ethics need to be embedded but which ethics? We can’t know what we don’t know and the future is full of unknowables. And then #AI throws up this. ➡️ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-26/loab-age-of-artificial-intelligence-future/101678206?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=abc_news_newsmail_am_sfmc&utm_term=&utm_id=1982449&sfmc_id=301136523
Chris SosaI'm listening to #WilliamMacAskill's #WhatWeOweTheFuture. As an #AnimalRights advocate, I appreciate his inclusion of animals in the moral universe. I also find myself frustrated by the levels of presumption that seem to plague popular works of #MoralPhilosophy. Not everything he views as a conflict is intrinsically an unsolvable "paradox," and his predictions about the future are, to put it mildly, hubristic. Sometimes we just don't know what we don't know. A little humility can go a long way.
Robert FromontAnother thank you to @timnitGebru this time for a retweet of the following Twitter thread with yet more things wrong with #WhatWeOweTheFuture - I sure dodged a bullet
The thread summarises this by Émile P Torres:
https://thebulletin.org/2022/11/what-longtermism-gets-wrong-about-climate-change/#post-heading
And yes… #WhatWeOweTheFuture is a great, thought provoking and a little terrifying book. If you consider the big things in life check it out.
I mean, I know philosophers are, and should be, open to considering things that seem ridiculous, and maybe I should charitably assume that there's an intelligent pay-off at the end.
But I'm getting that sinking feeling that's I'm a sucker tricked into reading trash again.
Has anyone out there finished #WhatWeOweTheFuture, and thinks I should forge ahead?
Fast forward to recently, when I spotted #WilliamMacAskill's #WhatWeOweTheFuture, which is all about how we owe it to future generations to not screw up the present. It recognises that humanity can now drive itself to extinction, and tries to figure out some strategies for avoiding that.
It seemed like it might press my armageddon fascination buttons but offer some rays of hope, and maybe suggest concrete actions.