LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Why I am not a successionist” by Nina Panickssery


Listen Later

Utilitarianism implies that if we build an AI that successfully maximizes utility/value, we should be ok with it replacing us. Sensible people add caveats related to how hard it’ll be to determine the correct definition of value or check whether the AI is truly optimizing it.

As someone who often passionately rants against the AI successionist line of thinking, the most common objection I hear is "why is your definition of value so arbitrary as to stipulate that biological meat-humans are necessary" This is missing the crux—I agree such a definition of moral value would be hard to justify.

Instead, my opposition to AI successionism comes from a preference toward my own kind. This is hardwired in me from biology. I prefer my family members to randomly-sampled people with similar traits. I would certainly not elect to sterilize or kill my family members so that they could be replaced [...]

---

First published:

May 4th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MDgEfWPrvZdmPZwxf/why-i-am-not-a-successionist

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,469 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,395 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

7,967 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,145 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

90 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, The Center for Humane Technology

Your Undivided Attention

1,480 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,236 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

88 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

428 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,462 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

15,335 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

483 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

121 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

75 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

469 Listeners