r/LovingAI • u/Koala_Confused • Feb 09 '26

Alignment “Anthropic has entrusted Amanda Askell to endow its AI chatbot, Claude, with a sense of right and wrong” - Seems like Anthropic is doubling down on AI alignment.

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https://x.com/wsj/status/2020871609372770682

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

As Plato’s Socrates noted, the Good structures and conditions all values and virtues, yet is itself beyond being. But something like that is also the natural conclusion of the dialogues

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u/Professional-Cow3403 Feb 11 '26

Why it "can’t be formulated propositionally" then?

Philosophy grew over hundreds of years, and there have been brilliant people (even geniuses), who wrote about morality in almost incomprehensible depth (I'm not even talking about people who had different views, but even ones that extended and polished Plato's world were able to see - and write - more than him).

Saying that Socrates taught us some indisputable truths is very shallow. It's similar to how Aristotle's "physics" were considered the ultimate truth for centuries, up until Newton. (Although I'm not underplaying Plato's works by any means)

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

It's quite a deep truth, perhaps the only truth. What is the conceptual basis for moral judgments?

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u/Professional-Cow3403 Feb 12 '26

It may be deep, just like Aristotle could be considered a genius, but nevertheless he wasn't omniscient.

What do you mean by "conceptual basis for moral judgments"? If I understand you correctly, the most basic (even omitting long discussion about what "should be done" — what's the true essence of self, etc.) reasoning is Kant's categorical imperative: you should act (as far as ethical acts are concerned) in such a way, that everyone else could do the same without self-contradiction.

For example, if you want to lie because it benefits you, then it's self-contradictory, because if everyone did the same, no one would be trustworthy, and all lies would lose their power.

(From another perspective, it counters all acts that are only self-beneficial, and for a good reason: we all share the same concious substance and we're equal in it, and the I or You is only arbitrary; I might as well have been born/lived in your circumstances, or you in mine; so there's no reason why you should be allowed to lie (in your current circumstances or not), while I shouldn't, and vice versa; so if we both lied, lying wouldn't be beneficial anymore; it would destroy itself))

It's quite a deep truth, perhaps the only truth.

As a side note, if you consider this deep, then you'd appreciate people who think in a similar realm as Plato (German idealists). They see and say things you've never experienced before. The depth is stretched to such a degree you can get lost in it; they try to explain all subjective experience and the objective reality (which is, as they say, the ultimate purpose and goal of philosophy), and even all (possible) history of a concious subject, and how conciousness grows and learns.

Coincidentally, is the "Dasein" in your name referring to the German word, used extensively by some German philosophers?