Is evolutionary psychology just a bunch of "just so" stories? (with Geoffrey Miller)

Sep 13, 2023 1h 12m 13 insights Episode Page ↗
Spencer Greenberg speaks with psych professor Jeffrey Miller about evolutionary psychology, emphasizing its role in understanding modern behavior and self-improvement. They also discuss applying behavioral science to AI safety, advocating for a pause in advanced AI development due to alignment challenges and diverse human values.
Actionable Insights

1. Leverage Evolutionary Psychology for Self-Improvement

Understand evolutionary psychology, including instincts for status-seeking and virtue signaling, to gain freedom from societal pressures like consumerism and improve your life to be healthier, happier, and wiser.

2. Invest in Mating-Relevant Traits

Dedicate at least 10% as much effort to improving your mating-relevant traits as you do to your education and career, as many attractive traits are actionable and can be cultivated with effort.

3. Cultivate Actionable Attractive Traits

Focus on improving “low-hanging fruit” traits that enhance attractiveness, such as dressing better, developing a better fashion sense, getting in shape, cultivating a sense of humor, improving specific skills (singing, drawing), getting better at sex, getting better at conversation, and refining vocal timbre.

4. Seek Radically Honest Feedback

Cultivate friends, ideally of the opposite sex if straight, who are capable of radical honesty, and ask them for specific feedback on your behavior to identify areas for improvement.

5. Frame Feedback as a Favor

When requesting feedback, frame it as a favor to the person providing it, emphasizing your genuine desire to improve, which can encourage more honest and helpful critique.

6. Build Trust for Honest Feedback

Be patient when seeking feedback, starting with a few key points, and then demonstrate that you value and act on the input to build trust for more honest and actionable advice in the future.

7. Consider Ex-Lover Feedback

Though challenging, consider reaching out to ex-lovers for feedback on past mistakes or behaviors that were off-putting, as this can provide valuable insights for future relationships.

8. Pause Advanced AI Research

Advocate for or support a temporary moratorium on advanced AI research, particularly towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), until the complexities of AI safety and alignment are much better understood.

9. Adopt Long-Term AI Perspective

Approach AI development with caution and prudence, prioritizing the well-being of future generations over short-term profits or rapid capabilities development, even if it takes centuries.

10. Support Narrow AI, Be Wary of AGI

Support the development of beneficial narrow AI applications (e.g., in biomedical research) that offer significant benefits with minimal risk, but remain very wary of pursuing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI).

11. Integrate Behavioral Science in AI Safety

For those in AI safety, actively push behavioral science insights into discussions, especially regarding the full diversity and complexity of human values that AI systems need to align with.

12. Acknowledge Diverse Human Values in AI

AI developers and researchers must take the full diversity of human values seriously, including religious and political values, to avoid alienating large segments of humanity and to ensure ethical AI alignment.

13. Gain Control Perspective from Parenting

AI researchers should gain more experience with parenting to understand the inherent difficulty of controlling intelligent, sentient beings with their own agendas, realizing that micromanaging an AGI will be even harder than raising a child.