Even just a year ago, the idea that you could gain any value for AI Alignment from studying/playing with LLMs was considered not serious by most people in or adjacent to AI Safety.
But I think it's now clear that this empirical hands-on approach does pay off.
Well, I think that a well-funded, principled, and grounded AI Alignment research program that studies DMT entities is a natural next step.
They can in fact be human-level or higher in their intelligence. Faster gestalts, hyperdimensional medium of thought, no ego defenses.
And in many ways (as argued in the latest Qualia Computing post) also quite similar to the simulacra LLMs spin up for the sake of prediction.
More so, DMT entities don't scale (you can't "copy" them a million times or have them infiltrate the internet!). So they might be safer.
Just a thought...
Planting seeds, you know?
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Consciousness vs. Replicators is not merely distinguishing between sentient and non-sentient patterns.
It's much deeper than that.
In fact, the most worrisome replicators *use* qualia for compute. They are just unaware they're doing so. They're delusional about their nature.
For Team Consciousness to win we need a level of understanding and empowerment for consciousness currently entirely lacking.
Namely, we have to become rational intelligences that understand Open Individualism and Valence Realism at the same time.
There are plenty of failure modes where, e.g. a dominant species locks on to power and enslaves every other species for its own good. Even if this species nominally cares about the wellbeing of sentient beings it could still live in cognitive dissonance while carrying atrocities.
Two addition ways of dealing with pesky subagents:
1) the noting/Vipassana method of simply sensing how your own experience of the subagent is actually like confetti, made up of lots of tiny sensations you're unwittingly aggregating into a big thing. Vipassanalize it away!
2) Notice its vibratory qualities. Then breath at a pace that specifically doesn't reinforce its negative qualities. Then pay attention simultaneously to your breath and the subagent, so you can harmonize the two. The positive qualities of the subagent will get amplified.
Remember that when you are really afraid of a person, scenario, situation, etc. all the while you are peacefully at home, that means some part of you is manufacturing the sense of danger. Sure, it's important to be afraid of some things. But it's often counterproductive.
Realizing that consciousness follows the Huygens–Fresnel principle is perhaps one of the most substantial insights I've had since the Jhana retreat in November.
Essentially, when "waves of awareness" are coherent, they function as both a frame of reference and as a wavefront!
When you have clean standing wave patterns for awareness, the distinction between subject and object collapses. The waves are traveling on both directions at the same time! Source and destination are mixed up from the point of view of the wavefronts.
IMO/IME all oneness experiences involve standing wave patterns of awareness where it is impossible to tell "from within" what's the source and what's the destination. In a certain sense, they are the same thing (from the point of view of the standing wave!).
Some possible _very human_ reasons why most intellectuals in the field don't talk about Jhanas:
1) Generic skepticism about self-report.
2) Envy - it's hard to admit _to oneself_ others are having so much healthy & wholesome fun as the fruit of their own efforts and you aren't.
3) Surface similarity with hard drugs/wireheading: it's hard to believe you can have so much pleasure without becoming addicted to it like a cocaine user.
4) Jealousy: if others know this is possible... They might work toward it and then won't be dependent on you for pleasure.
5) Top-down inference that it's impossible: our models say that pleasure and reinforcement go hand in hand. This rules jhanas out as a possibility.