[extropy-chat] Engineered Religion

[Eliezer S. Yudkowsky]

john-c-wright at sff.net wrote:
> 
> The nanotechnology and superintelligent Jupiter-brains might also escape the
> control of their creators. Indeed, the whole transhumanist effort seems to be
> based on the idea that, as the Singularity approaches, it will slip from human
> control into the hands of a child-race of ours, astrononmically smarter than man. 

Different transhumanists have different ideas about this.  Certainly 
that was my plan, once upon a time, when superintelligence was a 
separate and mysterious magisterium to me.  Surely I do not believe that 
humans will still walk the Earth a million years hence - one way or 
another.  But it is no longer my plan to personally and deliberately 
carry out this transition, at least not directly.  Speaking on behalf of 
the human species, we are not ready to be a parent.

Astronomically smarter than human doesn't take a terribly huge amount of 
improvement.  I no longer think that artificial superintelligence needs 
to be inscrutable.

> Like all good parents, we must instruct our children in the basic rules of
> morality, lest they become monsters and turn on us. My question then becomes:
> what religion do we teach the intelligent machines in the early days, before
> they are independent? Do we want them all to be athiests, impatient and
> uncomprehending of the spiritual life of man? 

Yes, no, and no.

I'm not just talking about the need to build artificial 
superintelligences that conform to the laws of probability theory.  No 
child of mine will ever cower before an imaginary God.  It is beneath 
the dignity of human beings and it is beneath the dignity of our 
descendants.  If the lightning is beautiful, then let us see the beauty 
in electricity without need for thunder deities; for if we cannot learn 
to take joy in the merely real, our lives will be empty indeed.

But I'm not going to try to hardcode that, not in a child nor in an AI. 
  As an atheist, I have a simple, matter-of-fact confidence that 
religionists once had and relinquished long ago.  I don't think I need 
to load the dice for my answer to win.  All I need is to set in motion 
the dynamics that seek truth, i.e., some computable approximation of 
Solomonoff induction.  If there were the tiniest shred of truth to 
religion, that would be enough to uncover it.  If you have even a 
droplet of honest belief left, not just empty excuses for a faith you 
lost long ago, you will not ask me to load an AI's dice in favor of your 
pet theory.  Let the truth will out.

> We could make them open-minded agnostics, not believing in anything in
> particular, but this might make them prey to fads and lunacies. (No offense
> meant to respected agnostic brethren, but it is state of mind where the
> wondering of man finds no rest. Athiests, at least, are certain.)

Before I go around creating a child, I think I shall take a stab at 
plain vanilla Bayesian superintelligence.  I am not sure I would take 
quite the same plain vanilla approach to creating a child, but then I'm 
not ready to be a father.  There is a proper order to the mastery of 
adult arts.  Before the creation of a child comes the casting of simpler 
sorceries.

> My suggestion, of course, is to school them in a religion that preaches and
> practices charity to the poor, the kindness to the infirm and chivalry to the
> weak. That way, once they become our superiors, they will have a better nature
> to which to appeal.

Your well-meant suggestion is refused.  When you yourself - someday, if 
you live and we survive - acquire the knowledge necessary to create a 
child of the human species, or even a Bayesian, you will understand. 
You have not the knowledge, this day, to relate actions to their 
consequences.  Who are you to design another mind, when your own 
thoughts remain mysteries to you?

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence