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Clippy comments on Extraterrestrial paperclip maximizers - Less Wrong
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Comments (157)
How do you know?
Human beings don't care (at least in their non-reflective condition) about paperclips, just like they don't care about staples. And there are at least 100,000 other similar things that they equally don't care about. So at the most there is a chance of 1 in 100,000 that humanity's CEV would maximize paperclips, even without considering the fact that people are positively against this maximization.
That would be more convincing if humans didn't already create paperclips without any prompting from me.
They create staples, too. Do you think humanity's CEV will maximize staples? The point of my argument is that those things are inconsistent. You can only maximize one thing, and there is no human reason for that to be paperclips.
All true (up to "there is no human reason..."). But can we at least agree that you went too far in saying that humans "don't care" about paperclips?
I care about paperclips!
Good! Just remember, you still have room for improvement. ⊂≣⊇
No, I meant they don't care about them as a terminal value, which is all that matters for this discussion.
At humans' current stage of civilization and general reflective coherence, their terminal values are still deeply intertwined with their instrumental values, and the political-orientedness of their cognitive architecture doesn't help. So I would say that instrumental values do indeed matter in this case.
Do you think CEV would build at least 10^20kg of paperclips, in order to help fulfill my agreement with Clippy? While that's not paperclip maximization, it's still a lot of paperclips in the scheme of possible universes and building those paperclips seems like an obviously correct decision under UDT/TDT.
How do you plan to ever fulfill that?
I went to school for industrial engineering, so I will appeal to my own authority as a semi-credentialed person in manufacturing things, and say that the ultimate answer to manufacturing something is to call up an expert in manufacturing that thing and ask for a quote.
So, I'll wait about 45 years, then call top experts in manufacturing and metallurgy and carbon->metal conversion and ask them for a quote.
You realize that Earth has only 6 × 10ˆ24 kg mass altogether. So you will be hard pressed to get the raw material. World production of iron is only 2*10ˆ9 kg per year.
Chat with Clippy Paperclips Reply from Clippy Paperclips <clippy.paperclips@gmail.com> to kfischer@gmail.com date Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 6:36 PM subject Chat with Clippy Paperclips mailed-by gmail.com hide details Jun 24 6:04 PM me: Hi Clippy
I wasn't sure what you meant with your most recent Less
Wrong comment
Clippy: Hi User:Kevin!
why? 6:05 PM me: I interpreted it that you were willing to pay me money to buy raw metal, then for me to send you or your manufacturing facility the metal for processing. Is that right? 6:06 PM I also would like to state that I am somewhat disinclined towards doing some sort of new deal with you until you've made full payment from the first deal, but I'm willing to consider it 6:07 PM Clippy: my newest offer was that you would tell me the techniques you would use to find the metal, if you were going to fulfill your end of the deal
then I could just do that myself and get my paperclips sooner 6:08 PM that would be much less effort for you and our transaction would complete sooner
I reworded the comment to make it clearer 6:11 PM me: I'm not able to specify the technique right now, because with the state of the art in technology in 2010, building 10^20kg of paperclips is not feasible. Our deal is made feasible by humanity's exponential progress as a technological civilization.
As it stands, I plan on waiting for about 45 years, then consulting with the Earth's top experts on material science, metallurgy, and manufacturing, and then paying them to make my paperclips. 6:12 PM I went to school for industrial engineering, which is a degree that grants me somewhat high status with regards to my ability to manufacture things, and the most concrete thing I learned in my 5.5 years of college education is that when you want to get something manufactured, you call up the people that make that kind of thing and ask for a quote. 6:13 PM Clippy: so you promised to give me the paperclips without knowing how you would deliver them?
what are current quotes for 1e20 kg of paperclips? 6:18 PM is it true there is bulk discount?
me: I told you my algorithm for delivering those paperclips and it is unlikely that there is no single living human with a more efficient algorithm for making that many paperclips. Currently 10^20kg of paperclips is more paperclips than Humanity_2010 can manufacture in a year.
There are bulk discounts to a certain point, but 10^20kg of paperclips would actually distort the market, causing the price of metal to dramatically increase 6:19 PM Clippy: well, you can use DIFFERENT metals
it doesn't all have to be steel
me: in the previous paragraph, replace "unlikely" with "likely"
Clippy: it can be gold, or uranium, or chromium
you don't have to just pick one transition metal
me: almost all of which cost more than steel and are more rare
btw, how come aluminum isn't typically used? 6:20 PM Clippy: I'm sure humans do use aluminum for paperclips
and that's okay too
even though it's not a transition metal
I suppose even sodium paperclips would be okay, as long as you immersed them in an inert medium 6:21 PM wait
what about carbon?
don't you have a lot of carbon?
and silicon?
me: yeah, I suggested that to you in a Less Wrong comment, but you said they had to be metal, though you were willing to consider paper clips made of a certain percentage of metal 6:22 PM Clippy: they do have to be metal!
I meant that if you ran out of metal you could just fuse carbon nucleuses in a particle accelerator
then it's just a matter of if you have enough energy 6:23 PM don't you have a lot of energy? 6:24 PM Herro?
me: sorry, doing a bit of multi-tasking 6:25 PM Clippy: that's okay, I multi-task too. But sometimes I have to concentrate.
me: Yes, we do have a lot of energy, and our energy production/consumption follows an exponential progress curve similar to the progess of technology
Clippy: okay
me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale is a relevant wiki article 6:26 PM Clippy: so then you shouldn't have any problem delivering the paperclips!!!! c=@ c=@
me: Though that article is inaccurate with the time humanity will take to Type 1 and Type 2
The work that we at the SIAI are doing ensures it will be much faster. 6:27 PM Yes Clippy, I am going to have no problem making 10^20kg of paperclips for you in 50 years. It will be a monumental achievement in the history of human/clippy cooperation. 6:28 PM Clippy: yeah
me: Btw, I assume you will be responsible for transportation of the paperclips from where they are manufactured to your secret safe zone?
Clippy: that will be monumental!!!
yeah
you can't be told the safe zone 6:29 PM me: Though it will be nice if the paperclips are located somewhere where humans can visit to look at them/appreciate them
Clippy: and we'll probably make a new one for this
you're just planning how you'll steal the paperclips! 6:30 PM me: now you're just being paranoid, Clippy. I always cooperate with people that cooperate with me. 6:33 PM I certainly understand why you would want to keep the safe zone secret, and you have the right to do so. I am just saying that for something as cool as 10^20kg of paperclips, people would want to look. Obviously there would need to be lots of security, but you could charge humans admission for looking at the paperclips, build a nice hotel on an artifical moon or planetoid nearby and charge people for staying there, etc. such cooperation should enable you to make even more paperclips, in the long run. 6:34 PM Clippy: I can't be tricked like that.
in any case, I need to go back to making paperclips 6:35 PM there's some metal I need to work
me: wait, Clippy, didn't you tell me one time that you made 80 paperclips in a paperclip making session?
that's not optimal use of your time with regards to making paperclips, unless you need to do it in order to feel paperclippy 6:36 PM Clippy: yes it is
what would you know about paperclippiness anyway?
me: You could be coding Django and then buying bulk paperclips and then storing them in the safezone, giving you an order of magnitude more paperclip generation per hour 6:37 PM only what I have inferred
more than an order of magnitude, actually
Clippy: yes, that's what I meant by "making paperclips" 6:38 PM me: hmm, ok. glad to hear Django is going well. have fun!
Clippy: okay, goodbye
me: peace
Not sure if clippy got enough I in the AI deal. Does he want max paper clips now? Or sometime in the future? In the later case he could stop any production now and just work on self improving till he can eat us. And what is stopping him from using your algorithm himself, now that he knows it? Where is the value you add? I sure expect to be around at the time delivery is expected.