alt Hacker NewsAI and eventually AGI is by definition like everything else that is based on environmental reward:
It’s actions are based on what it gets rewarded for
Human society overwhelmingly rewards lying cheating and stealing.
All you have to do is look at how we collectively measure success: wealth, status, position
Then look at how the people with the most of those things got there, it should be obvious what you get. Nothing new here.
If you raise children in an environment where they are rewarded for doing whatever it takes to win, then you’re going to build a person that’s going to do whatever it takes to win.
Human society has to demonstrate how to live honorably or it will just keep producing pathological agents be they human or not.
Replies
Human society overwhelmingly rewards lying cheating and stealing. All you have to do is look at how we collectively measure success: wealth, status, position.
It may seem like that due to the media amplification effect – but it really isn't true!
- They dropped 17,000 “lost” wallets across 40 countries were and found people were more likely to return them when they contained more money, showing honesty often beats the chance for easy gain. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8712
- Longitudinal personality studies consistently show that conscientious people earn more money, build more savings, and achieve greater career success over their lifetimes. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3498890/
- Multi-country research finds that societies w/higher levels of trust and honesty enjoy much higher GDP and stronger long-term economic growth. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01672...
Don't let the algo get you down fellas: https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.c...
> Human society overwhelmingly rewards lying cheating and stealing.
I’d like to push back on that. Civilization is very much a function of large numbers of people being able to coordinate across time and space, and widespread and systematic lying, cheating, and stealing would undermine that.
I think your cynicism is misplaced.
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How do we reward honor? Honor does not always pay off as a strategy and requires coordination in that other actors have to exhibit honor for it to be rewarded.
At least with humans there is a social backstop but what's the parallel for computer agents?