From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Wed Jan 27 1999 - 00:59:37 MST
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky rejoined:
>One, if it's really that bad, I'm going to side with the AIs.
>It's the sane thing to do.
Precisely so. A sane AI, regardless of hardware/software particulars,
appeals to my social nature, and elicits warm confidence in me, more than
most of the meat puppets I see in everyday life.
>Two, an insane AI would be insane in a totally different way than _us_,
>and might function at a variance that would not only be extreme, but
>also randomly destructive.
Yes, I had considered that possibility. Nevertheless, I fear such random
destruction less than the social organization of aggressive use of human
force (i.e., violence and mass destruction) as practiced by the sort who
have visited two World Wars on our planet. I find holocausts personally
engineered by humans less bearable than possible conflagrations inflicted by
a lunatic synthetic intelligence. If something destroys my biosphere, please
don't let it have the same kind of brain as I have. I can accept the thought
of murder from a demented machine better than I can tolerate the idea of
carnage from humans who feign rationality. Armageddon, with its armies of
fanatics, offends me with its stinking religiosity far more than an SI could
ever torture me with its exotic logic. Furthermore, I suspect that the
maximum cruelties toward humans emanate from the depths of twisted human
motives, for which machines can have no affinity. IOW, humans know how to
hurt humans better than any crazy machine could.
>Three, no matter how insane we are, we're still trying. I think there
>really are a few things we've got right. We may still be insane, but
>we're saner than in medieval times. A sane AI would have at least that
>much in common. An insane AI would have nothing in common at all.
Trying so hard, we may wind up trying the patience of Gaia herself. (Just
kidding.)
How can we know about sanity until we become completely sane? People of the
Dark Ages, from what has survived to speak for them, had less informed
philosophies and lived with less knowledge of the universe, but did they
have less sanity? Such a conclusion seems doubtful to me. In fact, to live
and love in a world without science would seem to require _more_ sanity than
to live and love in a world with so much knowledge that no one can know it
all.
What does sanity mean?
The need to define sanity indicates a desire to prove ourselves sane, so
that we can feel that our venture into ultra-high technology remains
sensible.
But the whole history of humanity proves that humanity lacks sanity as much
as it lacks anything. Basically, humanity proves itself insane by fighting
five thousand wars in the last three thousand years. The greed, jealousy,
and selfishness that prevails throughout human social orders indicates the
dominance of something other than sanity.
Sane people exult in doing what comes naturally, in satisfying a congenital
appetite for the beauty of reason, the thrill of understanding, the
excitement of knowing reality directly.
A wise man once defined sanity as “coming out of the mind into the open,
into the silence, where no thought, no desire disturbs you. In that pool of
silence, with not a single ripple upon it, sanity abides, compassion
prevails.”
Sanity means to secure your happiness, and by extension, the happiness of
your neighbors, family, friends, and community, since one cannot really feel
happy when surrounded by misery.
When your means fulfill your ends, if you can manage that -- the harmony
between the means and the end -- then you've got sanity. When your means
don't satisfy your end, and you continue to repeat the same means, never
arriving at a gratifying end, then you've got a neurosis. "Make every act of
your life dedicated to love and sanity arises out of it," a romantic man has
said.
When liberated people want to play the game of sanity, they live as sanely
as anyone can live. Then they can outdo Aristotle with logic and reason.
They can follow every rule and regulation. But if they want to play the
lunatic game, then they can become as demagogic, theologic, and ideologic as
any other maniac.
The perfectly sane brain thinks only when necessary. It reverts to ecstatic
tranquility (i.e., it allows thought-noise to dissipate, clearing the way
for the emergence of superlative sentience or learning) whenever it can, for
as long as it can. Conversely, the insane brain cannot stop struggling with
itself.
A psychologist asked a psychonomer, "How do you deal with neurotics?"
The psychonomer replied, "We trap them?"
"Oh? And how do you do that?" asked the psychologist.
"By making it impossible for them to ask any more questions," answered the
psychonomer.
Cheers,
--J. R.
"Anesthetic offenses numb the best defenses."
--G. Willakers
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