Comment by lucumo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lucumo | Hacker News Reader

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There's a book in Dutch literature, The Assault by Harry Mulisch. It's a great read if you're interested in multi-faceted morality. It deals with guilt and responsibility when there's a chain of things that need to happen for a bad outcome.

During WWII the protagonist's parents are shot by Germans after a body of a collaborator was found in front of their house. The parents were arguing with the soldiers about something when arrested and ended up shot during the arrest.

The collaborator was shot by the resistance in front of their neighbours house, and the neighbours moved the body in front of the protagonist's house.

Over the years, he encounters many people involved in this event, and starts seeing things from many sides. One of the themes that's explored is who bears moral responsibility for his parents' death? The Germans for shooting them? His mother for arguing? The neighbours for moving the body? The resistance for shooting the collaborator? The collaborator for collaborating? All of their actions were a necessary link in the chain that lead to their death.

One of the characters utters a simple and powerful way of dealing with that morality: "He who did it, did it, and not somebody else. The only useful truth is that everybody is killed, by who he is killed, and not by anyone else."

It's a self-serving morality, because the character was part of the resistance group that shot the collaborator in a time where reprisals where very common. But it's also very appealing in its simplicity and clarity.

I find myself referring back to it, in cases like this. In the imagined future, where this tech is used for Bad Things, who is responsible for those Bad Things? The person that did the Bad Thing? The person that developed this tech? The people that developed the tech that lead up to this development?

I'm much inclined to only lay blame on the person that did the Bad Thing.

I think the appropriate way to understand blame and guilt is as social technologies. Who is responsible for some event depends on perspective. Any actor should assign blame, guilt and responsibility in a way that leads to preferred outcomes in the future, e.g. by selecting other agents to collaborate with, communicating rules or contracts and enforcing incentives. Different actors may assign blame differently and there need not always be an objectively correct assignment.

For example, in the story above, the argument against the Germans being to blame would be that the protagonist has no agency with respect to them being there and shooting people. The counter argument "He who did it, did it, and not somebody else" is shifting perspective from the protagonist to society, which does have agency with respect to the Germans shooting people.

I think so too. If the next time you can change something you would have done, such that less people suffer or die, then it seems like you should go ahead and do that. In the end this is the simple rule.

Sometimes you just didn't have the complete picture and you might have been acting ideally given the limited information you had; that is, if you changed your behavior, it might change for the worst in other situations. It's not about self-punishing, it's about learning!

Yeah, it is Germans for shooting them. Everyone else is a victim there. Blaming mom for arguing, blaming neighbours for not wanting to be shot themselves is just victim blaming at its finest.

It was Germany who created the situation as part of their quest for world dominance, it was Germany who trained their soldiers to be violent and cruel, who created the policies and it was German soldiers who shot.

You do realize that “Germany” does not exist as a real-life entity, with behavior and agency in a way that assigning blame would make any sense. In fact, it could be argued, that assigning blame to the entire country of Germany, namely after WW I, was the very cause of Hitker coming to power in the first place.

In my experience, in the US, the lawyers will find the "deep pockets" to go after, and may establish precedent.

In the US, we have the Second Amendment, which has probably prevented many, many lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers (but there have still been a few).

Unless there's a constitutional amendment, protecting the tech, it's pretty likely that some hungry lawyers will figure out how to go up the food chain, and get some money.

If the tech is used to go after politicians and oligarchs (almost guaranteed), you can bet that some laws will appear, soon.

In the US, threat of lawsuits govern many decisions. It's a totally legitimate fear, and politicians are notorious for protecting their hunting grounds, and their privileges.

Look at the fight over encryption. It is a "no-brainer," if you are aware of the tech, yet politicians have a very real chance of doing great damage to it.

The second amendment doesn't prevent lawsuits against gun manufactures. The PLCA, passed in 2005, is what provides special legal cover to the gun industry.

If you'll allow me to be cynical for a moment; I believe the PLCA was passed because the people in power felt safe from guns, behind their security and metal detectors. I don't think they feel safe from deep fakes or hackers (nor is there much lobbying money), so a similar law protecting technology would never pass.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerc...

This technology is protected by the first ammendment. The first ammendment is the main reason why the law does not have much to say about what kind of programs people cannot share.

I'm much inclined to only lay blame on the person that did the Bad Thing.

There's no technology that can cure humanity of moral failing. Most things contain potential good and evil uses.

You remind me of a story I was told years ago which describes a series of "good" and "bad" events and each subsequent event changes the seeming meaning of the prior one.

The part I remember is where a man is given a horse and rejoices at his good fortune and then he is thrown from the horse, breaking his leg, and he decries his misfortune. Then war breaks out and he is not conscripted because his leg is in a cast and he again feels relieved and fortunate.

This is usually called the "Chinese Farmer" story, and it's very popular among consultants and speakers: https://www.google.com/search?q=Chinese+Farmer+story

Maybe not the origin but here is the story told by Alan Watts: https://youtu.be/j4TZMxkxySc

If you get a motorcycle license in the US, you’ll likely take the MSF safety course where one point is hammered home: a crash is caused by an interaction of factors.

Imagine a car suddenly swerves in front of a motorcycle rider, which causes him to crash. Perhaps it was a rainy day, the rider was talking on the phone, they were traveling slightly above the speed limit, and they were sitting in the car’s blind spot. It was the car that was at fault for causing the crash, but if one of the other factors in the rider’s situation was eliminated, he may have been able to find a safe escape path to perform an emergency maneuver and avoid the crash.

Ultimately, it’s the final piece in a chain of events that directly causes it, but there are a multitude of variables that are necessary to lead to the situation. Blame can be assigned to a higher degree for a single party, but I believe blame can also be applied to varying degrees to multiple parties.

It seems the authors of the tool in question do not see where their technology fits into a larger puzzle. They may not be the ones who ultimately use it for malice, but it is worrying that they so readily shrug off ethical considerations when they have agency over this piece of the equation.

I don't think this is a good way to characterize this situation. In this situation someone is saying, look, these are the consequences of your actions, and they are washing their hands of the consequences in advance, knowing full well what they are. This isn't a series of disconnected accidents leading to an outcome.

A better analogy might be a guy who likes to hand out free bolt cutters on the street.

And so every executioner, and not the malfeasant lawyer, is responsible for the death of the wrongly executed?

A better heuristic, and almost as simple, is to rate responsibility in proportion to power, ie those with the most leverage to steer events take the most blame. Blame is information. It has no mass, and can be divided effortlessly.

I want to thank you for the recommendation. I am reading it right now. It is excellent!

That's a very convenient kind of morals for the people who invested billions of dollars into developing this tech, fully aware what it could be used for. (And OpenAI was aware, it's their entire justification why they don't publish the models)

There are no facets in the case from the book. Germans are 100% responsible for parents' deaths. All other things are just coincidences. Easy as that.

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