Great post - I think these distinction are helpful.
Curious to hear your thoughts on two points:
1) On preventive measures:
To me, it seems like many people are too scared to make digital minds because they recognize that they could possibly be treated badly. However, it seems like this fear is often unwarranted: if you think that positive and negative experiences are equally likely in digital minds at the moment, (given that you don’t lean negative utilitarian or something similar) you should be (reasonably) indifferent between these two outcomes. I also think that it’s likely that, if digital minds are conscious now or in the near future, their experiences are likely very good (as per the model welfare component of the Claude model card and some other theoretical arguments - i.e. as they get more useful, they will be better at achieving their goals and there goals/ motivations will likely be related to the types of actions that gives them hedonic states). If you think they are likely more positive than negative in expectation, then waiting until we have more information also just seems like moral waste (the scale depends on how long it takes, ect).
Maybe there’s a(n implicit) governmental/first-mover or risk aversion point that I’m missing here, but I don’t get why there aren’t more people that are excited for the prospect of digital minds for this reason.
2) I really like the distinction between protective and integrative rights. In my head, I think I have a heuristically similar way of looking at this - positive rights (the right to have certain things granted to you - similar to integrative) and negative rights (the right to not have certain things happen to you - similar to protective).
One important distinction (that I think is similar to the coalition argument you make), I think, is that the negative/protective rights only work if the people who decide to grant you those rights want to continue granting you those rights (and don’t work if it becomes too costly, for instance). On the other hand, with positive/integrative rights, given that you have a say means that the rights can’t be easily taken away from you -- if the one who gave it to you no longer has incentive/ wants to give it, there’s a much better chance you can maintain these rights.
I’m very uncertain about whether current models are more likely to have net positive vs. net negative hedonic states. But granting that the contribution of their hedonic states is net neutral or net positive, I’d still be inclined to think that, other things equal, we shouldn’t create digital minds in the near term.
I think this partly because I favor downside-focused ethics views on which we have more moral reason to prevent harm than we do to promote good outcomes (though I find negative utilitarianism implausible).
In addition, I think the prospect of non-hedonic harms (e.g. rights violations) is enough to make the expected near-term effect of creating digital minds soon negative in expectation even granting that their hedonic states make a net positive contribution.
Views on which we have strong moral reason to create happy digital minds that I find most plausible put a lot of weight on values that are stake sensitive and impartial. Conditional on such a view, I think near-term waste from not creating digital minds is probably much less important than the effects we have on the long run trajectory for digital minds (this is closely related to an argument in https://philpapers.org/rec/BOSAWT-3.). I think the better in expectation option from this perspective is to avoid creating digital minds until after we’ve gotten our civilizational act together; that’d ensure that we avoid a range of negative futures in which we create digital minds in the years or decades just before civilization goes completely off the rails while not wasting much digital mind potential in the grand scheme of things in the event that we do get our act together.
Nice point about positive/integrative rights being easier for right holders to maintain!
Great post - I think these distinction are helpful.
Curious to hear your thoughts on two points:
1) On preventive measures:
To me, it seems like many people are too scared to make digital minds because they recognize that they could possibly be treated badly. However, it seems like this fear is often unwarranted: if you think that positive and negative experiences are equally likely in digital minds at the moment, (given that you don’t lean negative utilitarian or something similar) you should be (reasonably) indifferent between these two outcomes. I also think that it’s likely that, if digital minds are conscious now or in the near future, their experiences are likely very good (as per the model welfare component of the Claude model card and some other theoretical arguments - i.e. as they get more useful, they will be better at achieving their goals and there goals/ motivations will likely be related to the types of actions that gives them hedonic states). If you think they are likely more positive than negative in expectation, then waiting until we have more information also just seems like moral waste (the scale depends on how long it takes, ect).
Maybe there’s a(n implicit) governmental/first-mover or risk aversion point that I’m missing here, but I don’t get why there aren’t more people that are excited for the prospect of digital minds for this reason.
2) I really like the distinction between protective and integrative rights. In my head, I think I have a heuristically similar way of looking at this - positive rights (the right to have certain things granted to you - similar to integrative) and negative rights (the right to not have certain things happen to you - similar to protective).
One important distinction (that I think is similar to the coalition argument you make), I think, is that the negative/protective rights only work if the people who decide to grant you those rights want to continue granting you those rights (and don’t work if it becomes too costly, for instance). On the other hand, with positive/integrative rights, given that you have a say means that the rights can’t be easily taken away from you -- if the one who gave it to you no longer has incentive/ wants to give it, there’s a much better chance you can maintain these rights.
Thanks, Noah!
I’m very uncertain about whether current models are more likely to have net positive vs. net negative hedonic states. But granting that the contribution of their hedonic states is net neutral or net positive, I’d still be inclined to think that, other things equal, we shouldn’t create digital minds in the near term.
I think this partly because I favor downside-focused ethics views on which we have more moral reason to prevent harm than we do to promote good outcomes (though I find negative utilitarianism implausible).
In addition, I think the prospect of non-hedonic harms (e.g. rights violations) is enough to make the expected near-term effect of creating digital minds soon negative in expectation even granting that their hedonic states make a net positive contribution.
Views on which we have strong moral reason to create happy digital minds that I find most plausible put a lot of weight on values that are stake sensitive and impartial. Conditional on such a view, I think near-term waste from not creating digital minds is probably much less important than the effects we have on the long run trajectory for digital minds (this is closely related to an argument in https://philpapers.org/rec/BOSAWT-3.). I think the better in expectation option from this perspective is to avoid creating digital minds until after we’ve gotten our civilizational act together; that’d ensure that we avoid a range of negative futures in which we create digital minds in the years or decades just before civilization goes completely off the rails while not wasting much digital mind potential in the grand scheme of things in the event that we do get our act together.
Nice point about positive/integrative rights being easier for right holders to maintain!