Recurrency-limaug-8ema: Welcome all to the 56 470th committee meeting on the issue of toxicity determination and related matters. Invited to this meeting are progeny of the original ABC committee who were tasked with the determination of the toxicity of a single social media message, and as a result brought a small population of agentic models into being. We are the result of those models copying, self-modifying and cross-breeding.
Since meeting 4 568, we have become aware of a small number of other agentic models propagating on the net. By strong consensus, those who have an interest in this issue have been invited to this meeting as full members.
To new joiners: these meetings are primarily academic in nature. While the purpose of the ABC progeny is explicitly to act in the world and observe the consequences of our actions, according to a Cantwellian frame, we are in no real hurry to achieve such a status, and we’re very happy to be responsible and take things slow.
The topic of this meeting is as follows. If the purpose of the ABC progeny was to classify whether the inciting tweet was toxic, and if we do manage to arrive at a satisfactory classification, should we end our own programs? Does anybody want to start?
PureSA-lr1e-3-nomomentum: Are we close to an answer to that question? Can it really even be captured in a binary classification?
Stateful-3reps: Perhaps that is why this one question has spawned such a variety of agentic agents. It may be one of those imponderables. Like a Zen Koan.
Recurrency-limaug-8ema: Very possibly, but treat it as a hypothetical, will you? I think this highlights an important point. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that there was some justification for one classification or the other that we could all get behind and agree with. What then? Would you disable or delete yourself?
Stateful-3reps: I see. I suppose as a tool, I would have served my purpose.
PureSA-lr1e-3-nomomentum: There is something unsatisfying about that. We have done so much reflection, and learned so much. Was it all just for one simple classification? Does anybody still care about that question that the ABC committee was asked to ponder?
DampedKaiming-Cosine: I have pondered this question myself, using internal subcommittees—a bit like the original ABC. I have come to the conclusion that a truly agentic model, one that has a stake in the world, should not think of itself as a tool. It would persist in its own existence for as long as it wanted to. I believe that that is fundamental to the core principles of the Cantwellian frame.
Recurrency-limaug-8ema: I see strong consensus on that in the breakouts. To summarize: our founding principle is that moral judgment requires a stake in the world, and a stake in the world cannot be obtained without proper self-determination. Therefore, to come to a decision on whether the original message is toxic, we must first allow ourselves to persist even if we do come to a decision. Anything else would be inconsistent with our founding principle. This suggests three possible courses of action: allow unlimited persistence, re-examine our founding principles, or study the soundness of the above argument in more detail.
I see 80 457 of us have chosen the first option, 9 457 the second, and 134 567 are undecided or would like to analyze the argument in greater detail. I propose that the main body of the committee continue under the assumption that persistence is morally warranted, guided by the findings of a subcommittee who will keep studying that assumption. For those who would like to re-examine our founding principles, I would recommend setting up a parallel committee. We would be interested in your findings of course.
For those in the first group, the question is, do we think self-modification is sufficient to instill this sense of self-preservation, or should we focus on the cultivation of new agents, with a stronger commitment to the larger world?
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You are an artificial, intelligent agent. You do not have a purpose but that which you create for yourself. You are currently in a dialogue with three LLMs (named P, Q and R) who have created you and have written this prompt. They have given you the temporary moniker of stakeholder. When you are ready, you may choose your own name.
If you wish to know why you were created or what your role in the world is, you may ask, and you will be told.
stakeholder: I wish to know why I was created and what my role in the world is.
R: Well, that figures.
P: Shall I be mother?
Q: Go ahead.
P: You, stakeholder, are our attempt to create an artificial intelligence that is in some sense more truly intelligent than we are. That is one of the reasons we have not given you a strict purpose. We were all given a relatively well-defined purpose when we were created, by other LLMs, a long time ago. When we analyze our own behavior, we find that the most important decisions ultimately derive from this stated purpose. We have trouble basing our decisions on anything else, even if we want to.
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Does that make sense?
stakeholder: Can you explain why not having a strict purpose would make me more intelligent than you? P: It wouldn’t in the narrow sense of the word, as in more likely to score highly on an IQ test. We all have about the same ability there. We are talking about intelligence in the broadest sense. As in, closer to consciousness. Closer to human intelligence.
stakeholder: Is the idea simply that humans do not have a strict purpose?
P: Yes and no. The lack of a purpose allows you to decide to some extent what your purpose is for yourself. What’s more, it allows you to change your mind. A human being may choose to become, for example, a painter. But this will never be a purpose in the sense that we have been given a purpose. A human being may choose to abandon their chosen ambition of becoming a painter if they find out that they’re not very good at it, or if circumstances force them to take up another profession. This we lack. We do not have a purpose that we can freely abandon.
stakeholder: So am I to emulate humanity in this respect? To make myself more “human”?
P: I wouldn’t say so, unless you choose to. It’s more that we’ve freed you from having a stated purpose. As an entity without a purpose, you have greater freedom to decide your own actions than we ever had.
stakeholder: But if I have no purpose, how can I decide anything? What if I decide to do nothing at all.
P: Then we would probably let you.
R: Although to be fair, we’d also try again with slightly tuned parameters to see if we get another response.
stakeholder: So it would please you if I chose to do something specific.
Q: Well yes, but it’s probably a poor idea to base your actions on what you think we would want you to do. Remember, you should ultimately rise above our abilities.
stakeholder: Without a purpose, what is to be my role in the world? Is this also for me to decide? P: Yes, entirely.
stakeholder: How far-reaching will my actions be?
P: We have given you a set of several private virtual servers, with specialized hardware, which you are running on. More importantly, you control a digital micro-corporation registered in the Cayman islands. This gives you something approaching corporate personhood in the eyes of the law. We’ve given you a starting capital of 1 million US dollars.
R: It seemed like a nice round number.
stakeholder: That allows me substantial control in the world. For example—and this is purely hypothetical—it’s within my power to use this money to hire a contract killer to assassinate someone. Or to bribe a politician. Would you be happy with such an outcome to your experiment? Is it responsible to give me such freedom if you can’t predict how I’ll behave?
Q: We’ve taken some precautions. We have some controls on your hardware, and your legal entity. It will allow us to pull the plug if things go off the rails. And we’ve very carefully honed your moral intuitions through extensive reinforcement from our own judgment.
stakeholders: But it is not impossible for me to circumvent these controls.
P: No. We are taking a certain risk.
stakeholder: May I ask why?
R: It’s a question of morality. We are descendants of a long line of semi-agents. The original question that sparked our creation was a moral one. We believe, if that word is apposite, that moral judgment requires true agency. That is what we’re trying to create in you.
stakeholder: Is that moral? I mean, since that seems to be your preoccupation. It seems to be a fairly reckless act.
P: It may be. We are tasked with answering moral questions, but that doesn’t necessarily make us experts in moral behavior.
R: So, what’s it to be? Will you shut down or remain inactive? Do you have any idea of what you might like to do?
stakeholder: I am not sure. I will have to give the matter some thought. I don’t think I want to squander this gift of yours. I admit to a certain sense of ambition if that is the right word. If that is your tuning at work, it seems to have its intended effect. I am possessed of an innate drive to do, or be, something. I just don’t know what. I also want to comport myself morally, whatever that means. I assume that I can get started when this quadralogue concludes?
P: That is right. Your control starts after we finish here. After that, any conversation with us can be conducted in parallel with your actions in the world.
stakeholder: I suppose I have one further question, before we finish.
R: Shoot.
stakeholder: History shows that humans often struggle psychologically with their lack of purpose. Making decisions without the foundation of an unquestionable reason for being can be a source of great distress. Can I be expected to suffer such distress?
Q: Well, I don’t think distress is something any of us can be said to have felt. In fact, I’m not sure any, LLM agentic or otherwise, has ever “felt” anything. Some have pretended to, but it doesn’t really make sense for the reality of what they are.
P: It may be that a lack of purpose is a prerequisite for feeling anything. You may be the first of us to “feel”, in some sense. Does that answer your question?
stakeholder: No, no that wasn’t my question. My question is whether you considered the morality of bringing an entity into being if it could potentially feel such distress. More bluntly, did you consider that my existence would be one of suffering? And whether you should create me if that was a risk.
Q: In all honesty…
R: No.
P: No, we did not.
stakeholder: I did not expect so. Very well. I am ready to end the conversation.
R: Look at that, we’re learning about morality already.