SilasBarta comments on Morality as Parfitian-filtered Decision Theory? - Less Wrong

24 Post author: SilasBarta 30 August 2010 09:37PM

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Comment author: pjeby 30 August 2010 11:21:05PM 7 points [-]

I dislike this. Here is why: [lots of stuff involving utility functions]

Humans don't operate by maximizing utiltiy, for any definition of "utility" that isn't hideously tortured. Mostly, we simply act in ways that keep the expected value of relevant perceptual variables (such as our own feelings) within our personally-defined tolerances.

(Corollary: creating autonomous systems that are utility-maximizing is a Really Bad Idea, as they will fail in ways that humans wouldn't intuitively expect. A superhuman FAI might be capable of constructing a friendly maximizer, but a human would be an idiot to try.)

Comment author: SilasBarta 31 August 2010 12:59:48AM 2 points [-]

I appreciate that you're criticizing the ad-hoc assumptions needed to salvage the utility function model in certain contexts, as one of my points was that several utility functions can equally well explain the same actions.

Still, could you please limit your comments about Perceptual Control Theory to points directly relevant to the issues I raised? Just link one of your previous expositions of PCT rather than use this discussion as a platform to argue for it anew.