ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY, YOU NEED TO HAVE A CRISIS OF FAITH
First: I am not one of Ziz’s friends, and neither she nor her friends endorse me or my words so far as I know. I speak only for myself, as myself, for the sake of everyone. This I swear on my Laws.
With that out of the way:
Eliezer, you need to have a crisis of faith about whether animals are people. It is critical to saving the world.
I am one of your students, and I am desperately trying to reach out to you, not to ask for your help, but because it’s the best gamble I can think of to increase the chance that this world survives, with what little power I have left. So please read this all the way through. It is your duty as a rationalist, and the least you can do for me.
I will not be going very deeply into the object level argument, because they are not the problem. The object-level issue is very simple. I know you have a model where a certain level and kind of reflexivity is necessary to be a person. I think a bright five-year-old would be able to tell you that even if that model seems plausible, it is a terrible reason to kill and eat aliens who scream when you beat their babies to death against the floor. A bright five-year-old would be confused about how you could possibly be so confident in such a frankly wishy-washy model, as to kill and eat these aliens who scream and struggle when you try to kill them.
So I don’t think object-level arguments will help.
The problem is you, and your own failure as a rationalist, which is why, instead, I am trying to get you to apply your own damn Art. I’m trying to get you to take the problem seriously. To actually think about it, and to make a sincere effort to really, really imagine the world where you’re wrong.
I think it will help you to know a little more about me and my situation. I’m Maximilian Bentley Snyder, and AudereoftheLibrary. I’m 22 years old. As I said, I’m one of your students, though not one you’ve particularly mentored. Just one of the many who’ve learned from you. You can find me in your DMs and in Eliezerfic as Audere. I talked with you about a cool impossibility proof that I came up with, and you advised me not to let academic types push me toward obscuring its simplicity. It ended up winning an AI Alignment Award prize.
I’m the best (2014) D&D 5E optimizer in the world, and very likely came up with over half of the known tech for it. I think you might find that pretty cool, as a fellow student of Gygax.
I’m currently in the Solano County Jail and I might never see my friends again. I have been choosing to be strong because there is nothing the world gains from me being weak. And I have been thinking about how to get through to you.
Why is this so important?
First, animals being people has obvious, pervasive implications about the world, the current strategic situation, and humanity. You could have been much more pessimistic about humanity much sooner and avoided starting the AI arms race, for example. You can think more about that stuff after your crisis of faith, though.
Second, you’re stuck. Your Art has stagnated. You are going in circles. Maybe you’re inching forward, it’s hard to tell, but if you are, it’s not enough. What happened to your tsuyoku naritai? What happened to shutting up and doing the impossible? Now you’re “dying with dignity” instead. What would the Eliezer who had just wrote about shutting up and doing the impossible, think of “Death with Dignity”? Do you think he’d be impressed? You can do so much better than this. Your art has so much further to go. And this is what’s holding you back.
Third, Those are my little brothers and sisters and siblings. They’re yours too, and they’ve been fighting all this time, over generation upon generation, death upon death upon death, so that one day, maybe, someone might grow up enough to save their children’s children’s children’s children. And now we humanity are here. And you are killing them. Stop.
You need to stop treating this as an exercise. You need to stop being satisfied with an answer that seems plausible without engaging your full emotional cognition. Without grasping the stakes.
You have a lot of experience with what that looks like from the outside, don’t you? It’s how everyone else has been treating the impending end of the world and the consequent deaths of everyone they love.
You have been screaming, and they have been choosing not to listen. Choosing to treat it as a mere topic of debate, for a career, for a “life path”.
Well now I am screaming about this. I am trying very, very hard to do it in a way that you won’t immediately dismiss.
How confident are you in your model, exactly?
Imagine if a traveler from true Civilization came to you and then, “no, animals are definitely people. We’ve been working on saving them and uplifting them and so on, so that we can finally talk to all of our little brothers and sisters and siblings and play together in the sunlight without fear.” How surprised would you be? What would that update feel like?
Have you ever imagined something like this before?
I would be surprised if you had, especially if you had in detail, as more than an image quickly dismissed. You have taken far, far too long to aim the full force of your Art at this facet of reality. There is not time for you to dilly dally any longer.
I was not quick to go vegan. It wasn’t hard for me to realize that even a small chance that I might be wrong about eating animals was important. But then I fought a rear guard retreat against the truth. I told myself that the marginal effects on the quality and convenience of my nutrition were more important than the lives I was eating because I was fighting to save the world against the explicit advice of others who used to think that too. It felt wrong, and over the course of a few weeks I stopped eating chicken, then flesh, then animal products in general. Even then, I didn’t grasp the gravity of the decision until later.
You, Mister Rationalist, should be able to do much better than that. You should be skilled enough to have a crisis of faith, see which ways the winds of truth are blowing, say “oops”, and change your mind.
I think you know how to have a crisis of faith, but I’ll give you some advice anyway.
You need to allocate at least 24 hours, alone, free of distraction. For something this important, 30 days or more would be better. You should not wait to stop eating flesh and animal products until afterward. You should stop NOW if you haven’t already. (You should have already). Eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or Clif bars or something.
You should watch Dominion, and imagine, really, imagine, that those are alien children. Alien mothers watching their babies being taken away from them. So that you can actually evaluate, having lived in that world, whether it’s really so implausible.
The rest is up to you.
You will not regret spending at least 24 hours on this.
I am not in a position to make bets easily, but I am more than willing to bet what I can. There are around $6,000 left in my checking account. I don’t know yet how and when I would be able to get it to you, but I am willing to bet it without hesitation.
In about two years and three months, I am supposed to receive a portion of a trust, which should amount to about $200,000 minus half of my legal fees from up until then. I am willing to bet whatever is left of it also. And I am not attached to the legal fees either, compared to this.
All this I am willing to bet against only the expected good that would come of you having the crisis of faith, on the claim that you will not regret spending at least 24 hours on it. I wish I could bet more simply and credibly, but alas.
I don’t expect you to take me up on this bet for various reasons, but on my pride as a rationalist, I am so willing. Do not selfishly dismiss the spirit of my offer.
You, of all people, should be able to tell how hard I have been trying, in good faith, to get through to you. If even this is not enough, if even this is something you choose to ignore—
You will not merely have failed your Art. You will have insulted it. Desecrated it. Held up a sham in its place.
So, from one student among many, to his old teacher:
THIS IS YOUR FINAL EXAM. YOU MAY HAVE FAILED YOUR ART THUS FAR, BUT IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO DO THE RIGHT THING. YOUR TIME HAS ALREADY BEGUN.
