[ExI] Morality research

[Anders Sandberg]

Ben Zaiboc wrote:
> I strongly recommend 'The Moral Landscape' by Sam Harris.  Fascinating and thought-provoking stuff.  I'm still reading it, and haven't made my mind up yet about his argument, but it's definitely worth reading.  I think it's particularly relevant to the question of 'friendly AI'.
>   

It is worth noting that most professional ethicists dismiss it. Not just 
because of a "not invented here" or job security reasons, but because 
they find a lot of faults with his approach.

One of the interesting things to watch is how people who actually work 
on 'friendly AI' reinvent or rediscover chunks of old philosophy. The 
best even realize this, and then start interacting with philosophers - 
there is an interesting influx of new ideas on both sides (which is why 
we quite regularly have SIAI people camping out in our office, 
interacting with the more mainstream ethicists).

The problem happens when you don't think there is anything worth looking 
at in the old discipline, since obviously your fresh approach is going 
to cut through all that messy stuff. After all, they can't have thought 
about what you thought about in all those benighted centuries, right? 
This is where you do not just reinvent the wheel unnecessarily but also 
miss powerful counterarguments centuries old.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute 
Oxford Martin School 
Faculty of Philosophy 
Oxford University