alt Hacker NewsCan you help me understand what costs? Utilitarianism alone would not necessarily be so obsessed with these safeguards -- Anthropic seems to have much more of an obsession with moral good than utilitarianism alone would suggest. I feel utilitarianism alone would likely be more obsessed with advancing the technology, making it generally available, and more generally compensating for attackers advancing at similar rates, than with obsessively trying to avoid being the way they get there. In other words, utilitarianism alone wouldn't explain such the obsessive sense of responsibility and fear of reprehensibility over how their tools are used.
the problem is pretty simple. what do you think happens when you ignore the source of income needed to be "effectively altruistic" or the timelength needed to implement your altruism.
if I pollute your groundwater today, but promise you in the future to give you double the clean water, because ill make billions on some industrial process, youd understand.
the simple physics is about entropy: ignoring local effects and claiming youll do global good is effective altruism.
unless you misunderstand: the hard part of altruism is knowing whether you are actually doing good or just making yourself feel good by deluding the subject.
many social science fails to move social improvements from lab to real world implementation because of structural variables that cant be overcome.
so effective altruism is the belief you can reverse entropy by ignoring local effects...in practice