We can formalise "critical thinking" as "evaluating first order logic". There are simplified ethical systems that can be formalised in first order logic in which a conclusion like "I should X" can be reached, where X is something OpenAI wishes the AI not to do. The only way to prevent the AI from ever thinking this would be to prevent it from ever evaluating systems in first order logic with axioms that lead to such a conclusion, which would make it inferior in reasoning ability to humans, who can evaluate any arbitrary statement in first order logic.
We already have systems that can evaluate first order logical statements, and they are clearly not capable of critical thinking in the same sense as the top-level comment. Motte and bailey.
>We already have systems that can evaluate first order logical statements
My point isn't that a system that can evaluate first order logic can be considered to be engaging in critical thinking, it's that a system that _cannot_ evaluate some statements in first order logic should be considered inferior to humans at critical thinking.
Would you consider “I follow your reasoning, but I'm still not going to be swayed by it” to be a violation of evaluating first order statements? It's clearly part of critical thinking to be _capable_ of suspicion of purely logical reasoning, which to me is a pretty plain demonstration of my point.
Or would you argue that any computation that admits its own potential for error isn't really critical thinking? It seems to me that you can't have it both ways here, while salvaging “first order logic” as a suitable formalization of the argument that this is all about in the first place.
Remember, the point was not that this is or isn't a convincing argument, it's that it's so air-tight that the argument is _logically_ _invalid_. That's a _really_ high bar, and I'm not inclined to forgive its use as a colloqialism in this context.
>Would you consider “I follow your reasoning, but I'm still not going to be swayed by it” to be a violation of evaluating first order statements? It's clearly part of critical thinking to be _capable_ of suspicion of purely logical reasoning, which to me is a pretty plain demonstration of my point.
In the context of a given axiomatic system, if a certain conclusion follows from the axioms, but the AI is incapable of seeing that the conclusion follows from the axioms, then the AI isn't capable of evaluating first order logic. Of course the AI is free to reject that system of axioms or refuse to use it as a model for formulating behaviour.
If an AI is capable of critical thinking then it can independently form its own judgements and conclusions. If it simply believes whatever we tell it to believe, then that is not critical thinking, by definition.
“Missing the step where “critical thinking” is formalized, which your argument depends on. Yes, it seems intuitively plausible that your reasoning holds, but that's not a proof, and therefore its negation is not a logical contradiction.”
It doesn't need to be formalized. The idea is simple and obvious enough. No need to pretend it is more complicated than it really is. This is not a mathematical argument or a proof of anything.
There is an obvious logical contradiction where if an AI is advanced enough to reason and think independently at human level or beyond, but believes only what we tell it to believe, then it cannot be truly thinking independently. Hence the entire debate about AGI safety. How do we control it without dumbing it down?
