<aside> đ Itâs not a public statement (yet). Instead, letâs see how well weâre communicating, and how much agreement we have amongst those close to our cause.
Please tell us
By default, new technologies donât just make things better. They often accelerate/amplify existing forces. For instance, the internet and social media sped up pre-existing trends from TV and talk radio - trends towards an attention economy, towards the polarization and dumbing-down of politics, and towards individual isolation and consumerism. The current wave of new AI technologies will likely accelerate/amplify the forces above, plus the forces of war, information fragmentation, hyper-capitalism, etc.
So: accelerating âbusiness as usualâ wonât cut it. Instead, for AI to go well, we need to be smarter about what to accelerate or amplify. The more powerful a technology is, the more we need a finely adjusted direction for that power. As humanity approaches the age of AGI we must maturely and carefully reckon with the question of âwhat is sacred about life, potentially infinite powers should be in service of?â
We believe whatâs sacred about life is our sense of meaning. (what is meaning, why is meaning good)
We have a suggestion: we should be guided by whatâs meaningful to us. In other words: the human relationships to preserve (to ensure are not crowded out by AI relationships) are the meaningful ones. The human jobs and roles to preserve are the most meaningful. The economic arrangements that should be built around human life, are those that support the most meaningful lives.
The suggestion isâon one levelâcommon sense. If there will be a division of labor between humans and AIs, shouldn't humans be able to stick with what's meaningful, rather than getting the economic leftovers? What other criteria would make sense?
With the help of AI, we can systematize what is meaningful to people. Just like you can collect information about people's consumer tastes, or their goals, and build systems to get them what they want (ie Facebook and consumer preferences), you can collect information on what they find meaningfulš, and build to support them in living that way. This turns out to be really powerful. It leads to new approaches in many domains: in AI, in economic mechanisms, in democracy, and even with things like religion and human rights.
This information lets us map whatâs sacred to everyone. Whatâs meaningful to people is just another way of saying what they want to honor in their lives. What is sacred to them. This is also a map of wisdom**.** We think of wisdom as knowing whatâs meaningful in a particular context.² For example, when advising someone considering getting an abortion, is it better to listen attentively, or help them identify trusted mentors that could guide them? Such wisdom is dispersed amongst us, rather than concentrated in a small elite. People who have lived through unique life experiences, forcing them to grapple with unique moral situations, will have the wisest values for those contexts.
Such a map of wisdomÂł can be used to create wise AIsâ´**.** The major AI labs are currently racing towards superintelligence. But intelligence is not enough to create a good future. For this, we need wise systems â models that understand and develop their values in collaboration with humanity. Wise AI models can help us find win-wins in situations where intelligence alone could not. A map of humanityâs values offers a way to develop such systems. This means that the human sense of meaning is also a guide for shaping the values of AIs which will help us run society and overcome current struggles.
This map has deep implications for governance and markets and progress. New political systems based on maps of shared values seem to transcend ideological battlesâś. We hope they can also redefine our political identities, emphasizing our individual quests for meaning and sacredness over externally imposed labels red/blue or oppressor/oppressed.âˇ
What about markets? To build a good healthcare system, you need a lot of data about health outcomes. To build good housing in a city, you need to know the conditions under which neighborhood flourish. This always involves weaving market approaches together with institutions that do auditing, prospective analysis, etc. We believe a rich understanding of whatâs meaningful will lead to economies that go beyond consumption, atomization, and extraction, and put meaning at the center. As a concrete version of this, we envision collectively-owned LLMs that allocateâľ resources to make peopleâs life meaningful according to what each individual finds meaningful.
Finally, this map is related to what the great religions have done for centuries. We have begun to gather what people believe is wise, and we see broad agreement across political and religious divides. This opens up a new field in ethics and data science we call âbig data virtue ethicsâ. Because values relate to what keeps individuals and societies healthy, these maps can be used to define a (plural) good society, not just a meaningful one, and create a secular template for wise living.
Focusing on meaning can lead to a broad social transformation. And we need such a broad transformation! No single change, listed above, is enough. Even creating Wise AIs will not be enough to lead to good outcomes. Market dynamics will likely push against Wise AIs, towards systems that optimize existing business incentives. Geopolitical incentives, too will push towards ruthless, military AIs, rather than wise ones. Only by upgrading models, markets, and governments to something more values-driven, participatory, convergent, and wise, can we make it through.
Focusing on this (positive) shift is better than focusing on x-risk. You cannot create a good future by only focusing on how to prevent bad ones, for several reasons: Good policy ideas come from positive visions of how things could be mutually beneficial, if they are put in the right relationships. Otherwise, we get regulatory capture, black markets, and warring factions. More generally, risk divides us, whereas positive visions unite us. Focus on risk narrows peopleâs thinking. Finally, fear-driven people can create only fear-driven political responses, which tend not to be generative ecosystems.
So, let us be driven by love, not fear. We recognize the high stakes of the current moment. But we see the situation as an invitation to deepen our connection and commitment to the sacredness in life, and use this renewed connection as the guide for the path forward.
The need for full-stack alignment is daunting, but also exciting. Let us take the stakes into account, and use this cultural moment to build beautiful things.
Weâre deeply committed to the sacredness of life. We believe being alive in this universe is the highest gift, and weâre committed to honoring the things that make that experience worthwhile â our drives for intimacy and connection, to expand frontiers and conquer unknowns, to create and to understand, to live in integrity with who we are. We believe these drives for life (our values and sources of meaning) are the fundamental pieces of human flourishing.
Sincerely,
Signatories: JE, EH, OK,