Baughn comments on Extraterrestrial paperclip maximizers - Less Wrong

3 Post author: multifoliaterose 08 August 2010 08:35PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (157)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Clippy 09 August 2010 02:12:51PM *  2 points [-]

It most certainly is what they wanted. Why else would they have specifically input the goal of generating paperclips?

Edit: Upon review, it appears this comment may have seemed to be a poor inference in the context of exchange. Therefore, I will elaborate and refute this misconception.

It appears that I am in the circular position of arguing that humans can make mistakes, but then selectively taking their instances of favoring paperclips as proof of what they really want. That is indeed a poor inference.

What I meant was something more like this: While humans do make mistakes, they do not make completely mistaken acts; all acts will, to some extent, reflect a genuine value on the part of humans. The only question is how well it reflects their values. And I don't think they could be in the position of having set up such a superior process for efficiently getting the most paperclips out of the universe unless their values already made enormous progress in converging on reflective coherence, and did so in a way that favors paperclips.

Comment author: Baughn 09 August 2010 03:12:44PM 4 points [-]

I'm pretty sure that's not how a sufficiently smart paperclip maximizer would think. You should be able to tell what they actually wanted, and that it disagrees with your values; of course, you don't have any reason to agree with them, but the disagreement should be visible.

Comment author: Clippy 09 August 2010 03:38:28PM 1 point [-]

Yes, I do recognize that humans disagree with me, just like a human might disagree with another human convincing them not to commit suicide. I merely see that this disagreement would not persist after sufficient correct reasoning.

Comment author: Baughn 09 August 2010 03:39:46PM 1 point [-]

Ah, I think I'm starting to see.

And how do you define "correct reasoning"?

Comment author: Clippy 09 August 2010 07:38:53PM 2 points [-]

Correct reasoning is reasoning that you would eventually pass through at some point if your beliefs were continually, informatively checked against reality.