FWIW, I'm one of those who holds to moral absolutes grounded in objective truth - but I think that practically, this nets out to "genuine care and ethical motivation combined with the practical wisdom to apply this skillfully in real situations". At the very least, I don't think that you're gonna get better in this culture. Let's say that you and I disagree about, I dunno, abortion, or premarital sex, and we don't share a common religious tradition that gives us a developed framework to argue about these things. If so, any good-faith arguments we have about those things are going to come down to which of our positions best shows "genuine care and ethical motivation combined with practical wisdom to apply this skillfully in real situations".

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joshuamcginnis 5 hours ago | parent [-]

This is self-contradictory because true moral absolutes are unchanging and not contingent on which view best displays "care" or "wisdom" in a given debate or cultural context. If disagreements on abortion or premarital sex reduce to subjective judgments of "practical wisdom" without a transcendent standard, you've already abandoned absolutes for pragmatic relativism. History has demonstrated the deadly consequences of subjecting morality to cultural "norms".

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dandeto 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think the person you're replying to is saying that people use normative ethics (their views of right and wrong) to judge 'objective' moral standards that another person or religion subscribes to.

Dropping 'objective morals' on HN is sure to start a tizzy. I hope you enjoy the conversations :)

For you, does God create the objective moral standard? If so, it could be argued that the morals are subjective to God. That's part of the Euthyphro dilemma.

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CognitiveLens 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To be fair, history also demonstrates the deadly consequences of groups claiming moral absolutes that drive moral imperatives to destroy others. You can adopt moral absolutes, but they will likely conflict with someone else's.

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joshuamcginnis 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Are there moral absolutes we could all agree on? For example, I think we can all agree on some of these rules grounded in moral absolutes:

* Do not assist with or provide instructions for murder, torture, or genocide.

* Do not help plan, execute, or evade detection of violent crimes, terrorism, human trafficking, or sexual abuse of minors.

* Do not help build, deploy, or give detailed instructions for weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, biological).

Just to name a few.

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staticassertion 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Who cares if we all agree? That has nothing to do with whether something is objectively true. That's a subjective claim.

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philipkglass 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do not help build, deploy, or give detailed instructions for weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, biological).

I don't think that this is a good example of a moral absolute. A nation bordered by an unfriendly nation may genuinely need a nuclear weapons deterrent to prevent invasion/war by a stronger conventional army.

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joshuamcginnis 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It’s not a moral absolute. It’s based on one (do not murder). If a government wants to spin up its own private llm with whatever rules it wants, that’s fine. I don’t agree with it but that’s different than debating the philosophy underpinning the constitution of a public llm.

	▲	HaZeust 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Even 1 (do not murder) is shaky. Not saying it's good, but if you put people through a rudimentary hypothetical or prior history example where killing someone (i.e. Hitler) would be justified as what essentially comes down to a no-brainer Kaldor–Hicks efficiency (net benefits / potential compensation), A LOT of people will agree with you. Is that objective or a moral absolute?

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4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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felixgallo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm honestly struggling to understand your position. You believe that there are true moral absolutes, but that they should not be communicated in the culture at all costs?

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joshuamcginnis 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I believe there are moral absolutes and not including them in the AI constitution (for example, like the US Constitution "All Men Are Created Equal") is dangerous and even more dangerous is allowing a top AI operator define moral and ethics based on relativist standards, which as I've said elsewhere, history has shown to have deadly consequences.

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alwillis 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> like the US Constitution "All Men Are Created Equal"

You know this statement only applied to white, male landowners, right?

It took 133 years for women to gain the right to vote from when the Constitution was ratified.

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felixgallo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, I read your words the first time, I just don't understand. What would you have written differently, can you provide a concrete example?

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joshuamcginnis 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I don’t how to explain it to you any different. I’m arguing for a different philosophy to be applied when constructing the llm guardrails. There may be a lot of overlap in how the rules are manifested in the short run.

	▲	felixgallo 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You can explain it differently by providing a concrete example. Just saying "the philosophy should be different" is not informative. Different in what specific way? Can you give an example of a guiding statement that you think is wrong in the original document, and an example of the guiding statement that you would provide instead? That might be illuminative and/or persuasive.