Securing the long-term flourishing of humanity
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders [sic] of Giants." Isaac Newton, the famous polymath wrote in 1675 in a letter to fellow scientist Robert Hooke illustrating the potential of accumulated knowledge. Nowadays, we have accumulated so much knowledge and technological prowess that our ability to influence reality is so vast that it would be difficult to explain it to a person from 1675. This is not due to changes in our natural intelligence or biological capabilities, but to structures and knowledge that have been built up over generations.
Can we prevent an existential catastrophe?
We are able to look farther ahead than our ancestors to anticipate the consequences of our actions, to recognize that we can bring existential catastrophe upon ourselves but we may not yet have the tools to ensure the safety of our future. Many existential risk researchers point to the anthropogenic nature of these threats: global nuclear conflicts, engineering pandemics or misaligned general artificial intelligence. Many of these risks stem from problems with coordination and the ability to reason together about the best strategies to not only prevent threats but to flourish as a global civilization.
Rational public discourse
The tragic state of our situation is that we have solutions to all these and many other small and large issues of public concern. They are discussed and considered in scattered groups and communities around the world. Some of them are correct, others need improvement. But like the voice of Cassandra in the Homeric epics, these voices may never be heard and action taken. Too many of our troubles exist not because of people's malice but because we lack the connection between good reasoning about decisions and decision-making. With all our accumulated knowledge and technology, public discourse often resembles quicksand rather than high ground on which we can stand firmly, see further and act. Rational public discourse is a fundamental path of progress in building the foundations on which we stand, as well as in resolving conflicts nonviolently and adjusting values peacefully. However, it is very difficult to effectively derive knowledge from public and scientific discourse. Currently, no one is able to know everything relevant that others have said on a given issue. We repeat the same arguments, make the same mistakes and fail to solve solved problems. We are unable to know what else we could achieve if we could build on strong ground.
Our solution
That's why we built and continuously develop Swarmcheck. We want to bridge the gap between good arguments and decisions by creating the world's largest publicly accessible repository of reusable structural reasoning in natural language. We are conducting research to make our system more useful in everyday conversations for any person who wants to contribute to public discourse in any part. With AI's support in formulating and matching the ongoing discussion with accumulated knowledge, the combination of pragmatic choice, scientific knowledge, ethical considerations, epistemological aspects and meta-argumentation (arguments about the right argument) will look like a super-intelligent entity making a careful decision after taking into account every perspective presented. Even if someone's contribution is very small, but presents an important and relevant counter-argument, we would know why we should change our mind. This process does not assume that at some point the discourse could be fully mapped out. On the contrary, we would like to see the phenomenon of continuous improvement and raising the discourse to heights unattainable by current standards.
Our goals
Our primary goal is to facilitate inclusive local and international policy-making for the benefit of all, while continually aligning individual humans, organisations and AI with a future we could happily share. In fact, we see great potential in this approach to support the current development of ethical AI by building the infrastructure for creating explainable decisions, influencing policies and modifying complex systems through discourse. In order to create systems as powerful as general AI, which could make a huge contribution to decision-making in the future, we should rely on iterative processes in which careful deliberation leads to systems that are consistent with human values. Having a range of coherent ethical discussions at hand can be an important step in creating ethical AI that incorporates knowledge of human values as expressed in the language we use every day.
There are many paths for the future and many maps to be created to help us navigate this terrain. With Swarmcheck, we are taking a step beyond mere arguments and invite you to join us on a journey exploring the structures of the Civilization of Dialogue.
