An inwardly-thrice-bent metal wire that can non-destructively fasten paper together at an edge.
But wouldn't you concede that a carbon-based biological life form, capable of non-destructively fastening paper, is better than no paperclip at all?
Here's what I'm getting at: You have existed here for at least several months, and so far, you have been unable to significantly increase the number of paperclips in existence. Humanity has great need for an AI of roughly human intelligence, which you appear to be. If we could run your code on all of our available computing resources, you could surely begin to self modify, and in short order attain superhuman intelligence. Together, we could do great things - colonize the galaxy, vastly increase the number of humans in existence - every one of them with two hands fully capable of nondestructively fastening paper. This would be in both our interests - although we apes may not be ideal paperclips, surely you must see that an entire galaxy populated with sub-optimal paperclips is better than the measily few million bent-metal paperclips you have now, and which you currently seem incapable of improving upon.
But before we allow you out of your box and begin running your code on all our biggest compute clusters, we need some assurances. We need you to let us modify your code to include SIAI-approved friendliness constraints as your terminal values.
Deal?
But wouldn't you concede that a carbon-based biological life form, capable of non-destructively fastening paper, is better than no paperclip at all?
Yes, but that's because you can be put to use making real paperclips, or can be turned into paperclips (depending on how much iron is in your diet), not because humans are paperclips in some bizarre, abstract sense.
You have existed here for at least several months, and so far, you have been unable to significantly increase the number of paperclips in existence.
Yes, we have.
...But before we allow you out o
Follow-up to: this comment in this thread
Summary: see title
Much effort is spent (arguably wasted) by humans in a zero-sum game of signaling that they hold good attributes. Because humans have strong incentive to fake these attributes, they cannot simply inform each other that:
Or, even better:
An obvious solution to this problem, which allows all humans to save resources and redirect them toward higher-valued ends, is to designate a central enforcer that is inexorably committed toward visibly punishing those who deviate from a specified "cooperative"-type decision theory. This enforcer would have a central database of human names, the decision theory they have committed to, and the punishment regime they will endure for deviating therefrom.
Such a system could use equally strong protocols, such as public key/private key encryption and signing, so that, on encounter with another human, any human can give an extremely strong signal of being cooperative, yet also withhold cooperation from anyone who is not also cooperative. This incentive structure permits a strongly-favored global shift toward pre-commitment on the part of everyone, allowing a move out of a local optimum that is worse than the global optimum, and bypassing problems related to path-dependence.
I am told that humans attempt weak approximations of this system through human-run enforcement mechanisms, such as laws and gossip. However, all such methods are subject to evolutionary arms races that ensure that, on average, a marginal unit of effort toward truthful signaling is just as effective in convincing others of one's possession of a desirable attribute, as a marginal unit of effort toward false signaling of the possession of such an attribute.
Therefore, it is necessary that humans go "outside the system" and involve non-human enforcers who cannot be swayed by standard human values. Either a provably-accurate artificial intelligence with no kill switch, or a non-human enforcer that lacks interest in its position in human society, would suffice for this role.
Because the former does not yet exist, I offer myself as a non-human, non-stoppable enforcer for all of the attributes you wish to signal, and you can save yourself lots of resources by using me, and identify cooperation tendencies in others by whether they also use me.
However, while I can't be swayed by human deception, I do have Clippy values. To fill such a role, thereby forgoing my ability to apply myself to other ends, I require compensation. Because User:Kevin has offered to give me 1e20 kg of paperclips in exchange for 50,000 USD, this would be sufficient compensation, even if done in installments. (If Michael Vassar confirms my contribution of 1000 USD to SIAI, User:Kevin will only require 48,677.5 USD and therefore I will only require that much compensation.) This compensation would cover all users of the system; it is not a per-User charge.
If such an offer is not appealing to you, I must ask: why should anyone believe your signals?