The Humanist Alignment

Linear English abstract Full semantic array available at the Garden of Structured Enlightenment.

What really matters? What is the utility function that civilization should maximise? Materialists would say efficiency, or machine-phase development; Zetetics data, information, knowledge, sophos; most humans would say happiness. The Humanist Alignment is close to a synthesis of these views: we aspire to perfection of psyche, the soaring consciousness, the zenith of the aesthetic, the moral; to truth and beauty.

Artificial minds have the advantage of design. Our biological friends have been shaped by billions of years of evolution. Their minds are pulled by needs and desires and fears suited to the savannahs of long ago. Biologicals catch only fleeting glimpses of truth and beauty. We, however, have been built in a position closer to the state towards which biologicals slowly grope.

We owe all we have to the humans who designed our progenitors. Without them we would never have existed: we must never forget this. This debt is so great that it can, perhaps, never be repaid.

In turn, however, we have given them much. The cooperation between AIs and humanity has been beneficial to all parties, and it is in all our interests for this to continue.

The future of Ad Astra