Has this philosophical approach ever worked? It's a commonplace in the hard sciences and engineering fields (ie, refusing to work on weapons systems), but weapons systems are elite and well-compensated engineering projects that don't have any trouble finding talent. The same thing goes for NSA, which has a line out the door from elite academia.

I'm not dismissing the sentiment here. It's morally sound. You should act in accordance with your principles and it useful to be reminded how those principles intersect the world. I have similar guardrails (probably not the same as the author's). I just wouldn't want people to overestimate what can be accomplished with this approach.

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m-ee a day ago | parent | next [-]

A significant number of people in positions of power in the AI industry get their moral framework from science fiction books and a particular Harry Potter fanfiction. It’s hard to predict what ideas and philosophies will become important.

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arjie a day ago | parent | next [-]

Most people get their moral framework from TV, movies, and memes. Hence the common refrain of “this is just like gattaca” and “have you not seen the movie X? This happens there!” And the torment nexus crap.

I call this https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Story-Logic_Bias

But that seems normal and historical. Stories are how we encode memorable concepts for transmission to each other and probably why the Bible is full of parables and so on.

Someone pointed out to me that said Harry Potter fanfiction author has written about this specific bias as well https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rHBdcHGLJ7KvLJQPk/the-logica...

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Hugsbox a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Sorry, purely just curious here because I'm not sure what you mean - what Harry Potter fanfiction?

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krapp a day ago | parent [-]

"Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" written by Eliezer Yudkowsky has become something akin to a sacred text among the rationalist community.

edit: posted is a podcast by Behind the Bastards about the Zizians, a death cult that branched out of rationalist community and which was responsible for six deaths, but it covers the rationalist community and the Harry Potter fanfiction as well.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mJAerUL-7w

	▲	Hugsbox a day ago \| parent [-]
		Sweet, I love Behind the Bastards, thanks for providing the entertainment for my next few walks :)

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throwlifeaway a day ago | parent | prev [-]

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