>
If I tell a computer to do something, it should do itThere's 'literal genie' material there...
> unless the result could be catastrophic
> I just want to live in a world where MY computer does what I tell it to do... mostly. Unless it would be catastrophic, or immoral, at least immoral by my standards.
... but there you're contradicting yourself, or at least requiring the software to read your mind instead of just listening to what you say.
Either you want the software to follow your orders whatever they are, or you don't; the moment you require it to evaluate that something is catastrophic, it is no longer following your orders; it's evaluating them to assess their effects with respect to some moral framework to determine if they are acceptable or they would fall under the 'catastrophic or immoral' classes, in which case it should not follow them; so it never was an 'obedience machine' to begin with.
The moment you establish such evaluation framework, it is no longer a neutral machine following commands; the rest of us are entitled in self-defense either to require that you also incorporate our morals in its decision algorithm, or to make you fully responsible for whatever decisions it takes under the framework you created, even if your commands result in outcomes that you didn't expect. Be careful what you wish for, as it could become true.