Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Exploring Tacit Linked Premises with GPT, published by romeostevensit on March 24, 2023 on LessWrong.

I've been thinking about tacit linked premises on and off for the last few years in the context of arguments about AI and longtermism. They have seemed difficult to reason about without carefully going over individual arguments with a fine toothed comb because I hadn't come up with a good search strategy. Since I wanted a test case for using chatgpt for research, I decided to try working on this particular search problem. I was able to develop a list of related key terms, a list of textbooks rich in thought experiments and generate a list of some key examples.

Prompt: related terms for tacit linked premises keyterms: tacit linked premises dependent premises presuppositions background belief implicit premises hidden assumption

Prompt: textbooks that cover [keyterms]

This was a long list that I then libgen'd and searched for all keyterms.

Following are my notes on some of the interesting patterns that surfaced or seem common to me.

Marginal vs. Universal Moral Arguments

The 'if everyone followed this rule' problem when what's actually on offer is you, on the margin, following the rule.

Rule Enforcement

Many problems seem to have a motte and bailey of not only holding to the moral rule yourself, but involving you in enforcement against those who do not hold to it.

Comparison of Moral Goods

Many problems seem to hand wave away that comparison of moral goods falls into the same problems as inter-agent utility comparison in general, instead making some tacit moral symmetry arguments.

Underspecified Costs

Cost of inference not acknowledged. Implications that people not spending time to work out implications of their own beliefs are acting immorally. Emotional and opportunity costs of living by unusual rules elided. Costs of reducing uncertainty about key parameters elided.

Emotional Pain as Currency

The implicit unit being how much distress various imaginary scenarios cause. Ignores the costs and second order effects from holding that as a valid form of moral inference.

Symmetry Arguments

Often assumed or underspecified along many dimensions through appeal to simple symmetries. Related to above via assumption of equivalent costs or that a moral duty will fall equally on people.

Invariance Assumptions with Far Inferential Distance

Relatedly, things far away in space or time are also far away in inferential cost and uncertainty. By transplanting arguments to distant places, times, or extreme conditions and assuming relations hold, question begging sometimes arises in assuming what the argument was originally trying to prove. Related to static world fallacy, argument in isolation problems, and hasty generalization.

Naturalist Assumption

That the things being compared in a moral quandary are in principle easy to bring under the same magisterium of analysis when this is unclear or what the thought experiment is trying to prove in the first place.

What You See is All There Is Fallacy

A fallacy in conjunction with proof by exhaustion: by dealing with all apparent objections, we are 'forced' to agree with the 'only remaining' conclusion, when the ontology of the examples hasn't proven that it logically exhausts the possible hypothesis space.

a concrete example is what seemed to happen with EA and the relation between the drowning pond argument and longermist arguments. Suppose a person encounters the drowning pond argument and accepts it as generally or directionally correct. They might then reflect as follows: "Ah, I was made aware of a good I would like to purchase (lives) that is greater in utility than my current marginal use of funds! But if I condition on having encountered such a thing, it stands to reason that there might be more such arguments. I should preserve my limited...