Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by arrozconcosas 139 days ago
How can you get a machine to have values? Humans have values because of social dynamics and education (or lack of exposure to other types of education). Computers do not have social dynamics, and it is much harder to control what they are being educated on if the answer is "everything".
4 comments
b00ty4breakfast 139 days ago
It's not hard if the people in charge had any scruples at all. These machines never could have done anything if some human being, somewhere in the chain, hadn't decided that "yeah, I think we will do {nefarious_thing} with our new technology". Or should we start throwing up our hands when someone gets stabbed to death like "well, I guess knives don't have human values".

Human beings are doing this.

link
kelseyfrog 139 days ago
> How can you get a machine to have values?

The short answer is a reward function. The long answer is the alignment problem.

Of course, everything in the middle is what matters. Explicitly defined reward functions are complete, but not consistent. Data defined rewards are potentially consistent but incomplete. It's not a solvable problem form machines but equally likewise for humans. Still we practice, improve and middle through dispite this and approximate improvement hopefully, over long enough timescales.

link
janalsncm 139 days ago
Well, it’s pretty clear to me that the current reward function of profit maximization has a lot of down sides that aren’t sufficiently taken into account.
link
philipallstar 138 days ago
The only thing worse than it is anything else-maximisation.
link
Forgeties79 139 days ago
That sounds like the valued-at-billions-and-drowning-in-funding company’s problem. The issue is they just go “there are no consequences for solving this, so we simply won’t.”
link
thatguy0900 139 days ago
Maybe if we can't build a machine that isn't a sociopath the answer should be don't build the machine rather then oh well go ahead and build the sociopaths
link
GreenWatermelon 139 days ago
This has real Torment Nexus[0] energy

[0] Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale.

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus

link