Thanks, interesting post, and I wonder how this can relate to AI and the ethical questions around AI vales

How do you think we can align humans with their own best values? is it more of a outside of the AI space societal work or is it also tied to the AI space? 

I think they are both connected and we should work on both, and we really need a new story as a species for us to be able to rise up to this challenge. 

And thinking more long term, when AGI builds a superintelligence, that will build the next agents, and humans are somewhere 5-6 scales down the intelligence scale, what chance do we have for moral consideration and care by those superior beings? unless we realize we need to care for all beings, and build an AI that cares for all beings... 

I think this "Human Alignment" your talking about is very important and neglected. You don't hear a many people call for an ethical transformation as a necessary adaptive step to the AGI era...  

 I completely agree. 

Thanks Jason.

Yes, I agree that a "woke" backlash is a significant risk. I think the first step is research to define what a sentient-centric AI truly is: what is the vision and how it behaves in a world full of conflicts of interest between humans and animals.

In my view, the answer must be an AI that uplifts humanity and strengthens safety for humans too. A kind AI that aims for gradual change, and that, to an extent, accepts the reality that our current civilization is built on harming animals. We need an AI that helps shift this, but patiently and strategically.

I know it sounds grand, but I think as humanity, we need a new narrative, and probably the AI era will bring a new narrtaive anyway. So we should promote the stewardship narrative toward all sentient beings. If we are building something godlike, it makes sense that we grow into this kind of responsibility. This AI for sentientkind movement isn’t about “going vegan” and because of that it may trigger less public resistance. and this could tap into the compassion many people already have.

The hope is that with the tremendous power AI will give humans, to reshape both the world and themselves, the conflict of interest with animals will shrink dramatically, making it easier to accept and implement change.

That is a great idea, thanks for all your remarks. I would be happy to hear more about your vision for this, will DM you, hope it is OK. 

I think creating content on these topics is very valuable, and I am happy to brainstorm other options. I will also do a post on possible interventions. 

Thanks for the feedback!!

"we already can't agree as humans on what is moral"

I don't the fact that all humankind can't agree on a specific set of morals, tough many things are quite in consensus, at least in the west, prevent AGI or ASI from having a set of value. They are baking morals into those models, so the question in - what will those values be? and they are already not the values of the median worldwide person but more like the values of the median person in San Francisco (e.g. the models are very LGBTQ+ friendly)

"Why would they build something that could disobey them and potentially betray them for some greater good that they might not agree with?"

I am not suggesting they build something that will betray the creators of the models, and one of the goals of AI alignment research is how to make models corrigible - so humans can change their set of values and not get stuck with something (What is value lock-in? (YouTube video)). We need to convince the leaders of AI companies and regulators to align models with a Sentientism worldview (because of morality, because of public demand for this, because it is a robust way to keep humans safe, and more).

"I’m mindful of the risk of confusion as one commenter mentioned that MA could be synonymous with social alignment. I think a different term is needed. "

That is a great point, and I didn't make this clear in the post. Moral Alignment is the field focused on the question what are the right values, the true moral values, that we should align AI to. Within that there could be different views, and I think the stance of most people in our community is the promote the Sentientism view. Moral Alignment differs from AI technical Alignment since technical alignment focus on making AI do what we want, and MA focus on - what do we want? 
I would be glad to hear more alternative ideas for concepts, if you have some. I am going to do interviews with relevant people to get some structured feedback on several possible terms. I am not set yet on any term

So you would call this Sentient beings sentinel? I like this play of words and also wrote something using it. I see the sentientist value alignment as inside MA.  

"The vast majority of humans still don’t rate animal sentience as being a good enough reason to stop killing them en masse, so it’s unlikely that they’re going to care about it when developing AI." 
I think the majority does care about animals and would want AI to care about them. ppls states values are better, much better, than their deeds. This movement is not about asking ppl to go vegan, it is about striving to take the good stewardship role that humanity has long dreamed of in ancient books and stories. 

"what does MA seek to achieve, that isn’t already the focal point of AI for Animals? If I’ve understood correctly, you want MA to be a broader umbrella term for works which AI for Animals contributes to."

Yes, MA is about animals, humans, future digital minds, and anybody that can feel. It is the space that tries works on the question - what values should we align AI to? and Sentientism is the worldview that I hope many people will promote. 

I think there is a lot of work to be done in this space, some of it is about bringing more talent and money, some of it is about promoting the interests of all the groups altogether (e.g. how does a sentient-centric AI behaves? it is a crucial question that is not being researched), some is specific intervention e.g. we need to convince AI companies to have a clear stance on non-humans. They currentl don't.  

 

I agree there is the opposite danger as well, and perhaps we have yet to known those dangers and new conflict of interests between humans and animals... 
I assume with ASI, the risk of possible future digital minds being in a conflict of interests with humans is bigger than for animals.