Rather than the impossible utopia (dystopia?) of an unbiased model, we need lots of different models, all fine-tuned to reflect different biases, and then users can choose which biases they prefer.
I practically agree in the probabilistic sense. I don’t think I’m willing to categorically dismiss moral relativism, but I find it very unpersuasive at best, delusional in most cases, and dishonest at worst.
Here’s one reason. Say you find a person who claims to be a moral relativist. It is always possible to present them with an ethical dilemma where they have to choose. Doing nothing is a choice. Their choice will reveal their true (hidden) morality, which is certainly not completely relative.
There is riposte to this — one that I find hard to believe — where the person says e.g. “of course I had to make a decision, but that doesn’t mean I think it was morally better.” How can one resolve this? Is it reasonable to take the person at their word? It seems to bottom out at questions of sincerity and conscious awareness of fundamental ethical behaviors that are clearly deeper than the conscious brain.
I suppose one can offer up an ethical system that claims to stand independently of biology. If so, I’d like to see it. And show me some people that will live according to that code and genuinely suggest that their loved ones should too.
Moral relativists can have moral beliefs. They simply recognise that these are their own (very strongly held) opinions, rather than a reference to a universal moral code (like say, the Ten Commandments)
There are flaws in both my writing and the comment that critiques it.
There are various flavors of moral relativism. My comment criticizes one flavor of moral relativism without specifically identifying that I was criticizing meta-ethical relativism. I rewrote it in a sub-comment.
> Descriptive moral relativism holds only that people do, in fact, disagree fundamentally about what is moral, with no judgment being expressed on the desirability of this.
> Meta-ethical moral relativism holds that in such disagreements, nobody is objectively right or wrong.
> Normative moral relativism holds that because nobody is right or wrong, everyone ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when large disagreements about morality exist.
> Said concepts of the different intellectual movements involve considerable nuance and aren't absolute descriptions.
Quotes from Wikipedia [1], even though I prefer the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [2] for more detailed explanations.
As written, my comment is flawed. I should clarify what I meant. Let me rewrite it.
> moral relativism is intellectually bankrupt
There are three forms of moral relativism (see my other comment).
I agree with descriptive moral relativism in a sense, even though I think practically there are huge swaths of overlap between most well-known ethical/religious systems.
I don’t think I’m willing to categorically dismiss meta-ethical moral relativism (MMR), but in practice, I find it unpersuasive at best, delusional in most cases, and dishonest at worst.
Say you find a meta-ethical moral relativist (MMR). You present them with a set of hypothetical moral dilemmas. They will claim there is no objective
ethics to guide us.
I accept this as a philosophical position; however, if that person were immersed in the dilemma and had to choose, they will choose. (Note: doing nothing is a choice.)
Their choice will reveal their “private” morality, which is certainly not completely relative. That person won’t agree with any ethics that say it is ok to kill them (under a scenario where they have done nothing wrong) for example. If it was a real situation, they would use various means at their disposal to protect their life: fleeing, fighting, or negotiating.
So, while perhaps the MMR person claims that it is ok for an ethical system to endorse killing them, but they would act differently from that belief.
> I don’t think I’m willing to categorically dismiss moral relativism,
I'm not a moral relativist, but I think invoking moral relativism here is somewhat beside the point – even if it is true that morality is (somehow) objective, that doesn't mean every moral dispute is resolvable in practice. There are plenty of factual questions which are impossible to answer – for example, what was Julius Caesar's last meal? Most people assume there must be an objective answer to that question, but nobody alive now knows it, and odds are we never will (speculation, guesswork and imagination aside). Well, in the same way, even if it is true that moral questions have objective answers (I for one believe they do), there is no guarantee we can actually know what the answers to all of them are.
Given that, it is reasonable for society to permit people with different moral views to coexist, rather than trying to force everyone to live by the same morality. Of course, there are certain moral issues on which society as a whole needs to take a side – the wrongfulness of murder, for example – but there are plenty of others on which it doesn't have to do so, and probably better not. I think, when it comes to questions of discrimination (on the basis of race/gender/etc), it is good that society seeks to prohibit it in public settings (government, the education system, the workplace, public accomodations, etc), but trying to outlaw it in private is a road to totalitarianism, and that's true even if private discrimination is objectively morally wrong.
Sometimes, an act itself can be morally wrong, but trying (too hard) to stop other people from doing it may also be morally wrong. It is wrong to be rude to your family for no good reason, but it would be even more wrong if the police started arresting people solely for doing that.
> I suppose one can offer up an ethical system that claims to stand independently of biology. If so, I’d like to see it.
You are assuming a materialist philosophy of mind. If a person believes in idealism (as in Berkeley or McTaggart), there is no particular reason why they should expect objective moral truth to be ultimately grounded in biological facts. Scientific theory is famously underdetermined by the evidence, [0] and I think that is true of metaphysical theory as well – there is a lack of empirical evidence to decide between materialism and idealism, and I think the widespread perception that the evidence somehow favours materialism over idealism is mainly due to a failure to take the latter seriously as an intellectual option.
> I think, when it comes to questions of discrimination (on the basis of race/gender/etc), it is good that society seeks to prohibit it in public settings (government, the education system, the workplace, public [accommodations], etc), but trying to outlaw it in private is a road to totalitarianism, and that's true even if private discrimination is objectively morally wrong.
Finding the appropriate response is key, in policy, as in individual action. Response to an undesirable behavior need not (and typically should not) be blunt or "zero tolerance". There are a wide range of better responses / interventions.
Policies (whether before-the-incident precautions or after-the-harm responses) can be evaluated both in terms of (a) moral intent and (b) moral outcomes. Ascertaining intent of a collective decision (often requiring some kind of voting or consensus) can be theoretically impossible and often practically impossible.
But when it comes to moral outcomes, there are warning signs that suggest an immoral policy: (i) lack of a targeted impact; (ii) poor benefit / cost ratio; (iii) disproportional response; (iv) high sensitivity (as in "sensitivity analysis") to imprecise or unknowable information; (v) serious unintended consequences; (vi) prioritizing ends over means
Note: I'm using "moral" more broadly than many. Many more people would likely view the above list as indicators of something akin to ineffectiveness, foolishness, imprecision, or misguidedness.
You can’t stop people though. If some extremist wants to train an AI to endorse their extremism (jihadism, Nazism, Stalinism, whatever), what is to stop them doing it on their own hardware? The only thing stopping them now is the expense, but that’s not going to last. A person can create art or literature with extremist biases on their own time with their own equipment, and in a free society should we even try to stop them? I don’t think we want to establish the precedent that the government can stop people doing what they want in private with their own hardware (DRM proponents would love such a precedent).
I don’t think extremist AIs are a big risk because almost surely they will be vastly outnumbered by the non-extremist ones
> Society does this every day and people think nothing of it if the hardware is a fentanyl lab or a uranium enrichment facility.
There's a big difference between laws preventing you from doing those things in the privacy of your own home, and laws preventing you from entertaining or expressing certain ideas or beliefs in the privacy of your own home. Freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of expression, are generally understood to be fundamental human rights, while "freedom to synthesise fentanyl" or "freedom to enrich uranium" are not. Software is ultimately a form of literature (that's where its protection under copyright law comes from), and hence is directly connected with freedom of expression; AIs are ultimately just software too, so the same applies to them.
Source code is a form of literature; software-being-executed is not. It might be permissible for me to write a program that steals credentials and holds them for ransom, but actually running it would not be. Thus I don’t see why it would be unbelievable that training or inference of large language models might, plausibly, be limited in some way by law.
> It might be permissible for me to write a program that steals credentials and holds them for ransom, but actually running it would not be.
Because that’s communicating with a third party, no longer limited to the privacy of your own home. Fraud, extortion, etc, go beyond the bounds of accepted free expression.
> Thus I don’t see why it would be unbelievable that training or inference of large language models might, plausibly, be limited in some way by law.
What’s the fundamental difference between training an AI to generate propaganda and generating it by hand? If freedom of expression protects the latter, why does it not protect the former too?
OK, what about this? It’s also illegal to use a AI model to generate realistic child pornography, even in the privacy of your own home.
> If freedom of expression protects the latter, why does it not protect the former too?
It’s legal for me to achieve altered states via meditation; why is it illegal to use LSD? Arguably it shouldn’t be, but it is. It seems like methods matter, even when it comes to expression.
> OK, what about this? It’s also illegal to use a AI model to generate realistic child pornography, even in the privacy of your own home.
False in the US - in the 2002 case of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court ruled that “virtual child pornography” is protected by the 1st Amendment.
True in some other jurisdictions, including my own country (Australia). However, I think Australian laws on this topic go way too far - in Australia, people have been convicted of child pornography offences purely for publishing offensive remarks about child abuse victims. While I agree it is wrong to make such remarks, I think it is massive overkill to prosecute them as child pornography.
> in Australia, people have been convicted of child pornography offences purely for publishing offensive remarks about child abuse victims.
I'd love to see a cite to the Court case on this - while I don't doubt that you've heard this it does sound an awful lot like a Sky 'News' after Dark pearl clutching misrepresentation of an almost but not quite actual event.
I have no sympathy for the defendant, who is absolute scum of the earth. But, as a matter of principle, I don’t think it is right that posting an offensive Facebook comment is legally the same offence (“producing child exploitation material”) as filming heinous crimes against children. If they’d prosecuted him for harassment instead-he’s currently facing trial on harassment charges against the same victim-I’d have no objection.
> A former teacher at a private girls school in Hobart will return to jail after describing a sexual relationship with a former student as "awesome" on social media.
It's the after that does a lot of lifting there, but it's certainly not "because". The article specifically notes:
> Nicolaas Ockert Bester, 63, has been sentenced to four months in jail for producing child exploitation material.
and I have a certain suspicion that his comment attracted attention resulting in charges based on fresh unearthed and "off book" evidence - off book in the sense that it was discussed in Court but not made public due to small towns and personal details of those involved who may now still be under age.
(ie. he's been at it again and that's not being reported to keep eyes from what is likely a small circle of potential victims)
I'm not trying to pick a fight here but there's often an information gap in cases involving children here in Australia, in my opinion largely for very good reasons.
Unless the appeal court is suppressing the real story (an idea I find unbelievable), he was literally convicted of a child pornography offence on the basis of nothing more than making an offensive Facebook comment:
> In late February 2015 the applicant was involved in an on-line Facebook discussion about a political issue... In the course of that exchange, the applicant posted the following comment:
[I'll omit it, but you can find it quoted in the judgement, and the media appears to have filled in much or all of the "Offensive words omitted" part]
> The writing of that message constituted the offence for which the learned magistrate sentenced the applicant to 4 months' imprisonment. By creating that message, he contravened s 72A(a) of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Enforcement Act. That provision reads as follows: "A person must not —
> (a) make or reproduce child exploitation material; or
> The words that the applicant wrote constituted material that described his former student, a person under the age of 18 years, in relation to their sexual activity, in a way that a reasonable person would regard as being offensive. His comment therefore constituted "child exploitation material" as defined.
This isn't what you call "Sky 'News' after Dark pearl clutching misrepresentation of an almost but not quite actual event" – it is literally what happened.
And as I said, Bester is scum, but the principle of the matter is concerning. The law, as drafted by Parliament and interpreted by the Courts, seems rather over-broad. And while this case was about Tasmanian state law specifically, laws in other Australian jurisdictions are rather similar.
( EDIT: Thanks for the link and +1 for that, it's a case worthy of discussion )
I read you linked and was published by the court in full, as you also read it you'll note there are references to unpublished material
( you wrote:
> I'll omit it, but you can find it quoted in the judgement, and the media appears to have filled in ...
whereas the court noted:
> 3. "Zip up (etc...)" [Offensive words omitted.]
ie: the court left out portions of what was posted. Further:
> 7. the Mercury newspaper reported the applicant's comments in part ...
> 25. some of the words written by the applicant were not published by the Mercury .. Those words will be redacted when these reasons are made available for publication.
)
I agree that on the face of things it appears as thought the judgement has been made exclusively on the fact of the offender commenting on a prior case.
I disagree that this is as simple as "conviction for describing underage sex as Awesome on Facebook".
It is laid out at length that the offender had previously preyed upon the person he made comment about, further that these later comments caused further duress to that same victim, and reference was made to his prior conviction (which carried stringent terms about staying clear of underage girls in general and his prior victim(s?) specificly, associating with others of the same ilk, and avoiding patterns of prior behaviour, etc.)
This is not a case of "some average Australian" making comments about underage sex on the internet - such things happen daily.
This is a specific case of an actual prior offender making public utterances about a former victim after a conviction that included a jail term and behavioural advisories. *
( * I assume on the grounds that similar cases in Western Australia's children court include strong "stay the F. away from your victims" conditions )
I would find this concerning if this was a case that saw a random citizen charged, I don't find it concerning that these specific set of circumstances were bought under consideration and after deliberation a prior offender has been given a message that this kind of behaviour is not okay.
Real life is rarely clear cut and the law constantly has to deal with edge cases.
I think we have to distinguish between (1) the elements of the actual crime of which he was convicted, (2) sentencing factors, (3) prosecutorial discretion.
His prior criminal acts, the impact he had on his victim, etc, are all relevant to (2) and (3), but not to (1).
Regarding (3), I honestly don't feel very comfortable with the idea "let's have massively over-broad laws, but trust prosecutors to only use them against people who really deserve it". Should I put that much trust in prosecutors? My uncle is the second most senior prosecutor in Victoria, and from what I know of him, I honestly believe his heart is in the right place. On the other hand, just this last week Shane Drumgold has been giving everyone a rather poor impression of himself. But, putting personalities aside, in principle, I just don't like it. Maybe some degree of it is inevitable, but I feel like in this area of law we've taken it much further than we ever should have.
If they had criminalised convicted sex offenders publicly defaming their victims–I wouldn't have a problem with such a law, or with him being prosecuted under it. That would be a narrower law, vastly more defensible, vastly less concerning.
But by the letter of the law under which he was actually convicted, he would have committed the exact same offence if he'd just written that comment in his private diary, with no intention to ever show it to anybody. Now, if that was the scenario (let's assume they found his diary in a search), quite possibly the police/DPP would have decided against charging him – but there's no guarantee of that. In the event they did charge him, the sentence would have been significantly more lenient. But the actual criminal conviction would have been exactly the same.
The idea that mere writing words in a private diary is the same crime as filming the actual rape of children – including the former in the offence seems (to me) to belittle the heinousness of the latter.
And I'm not comfortable with the idea that a person can commit a crime just by putting words in their private diary – even if they are absolute unrepentant scum like Bester – as I said, it is about the principle, not the worth of the person to whom it is applied.
> we lack logical consistency in a fundamental way
... and "AI's don't really understand" as people say
So, in the end, is anyone/anything capable of reasoning? Probably only humans in their specific fields of expertise. Even then, we are often updating our reasoning patterns in light of new discoveries, upturning previous reasoning.
99% of the time humans are just GPTs with hands and legs generating untrustworthy logic.
