I'm not sure I understand you. Values of the original agent specify a class of programs it can become. Which program of this class should deal with observations?
It's not better to forget some component of values.
Forget? Is it about "too smart to optimize"? This meaning I didn't intend.
When computer encounters borders of universe, it will have incentive to explore every possibility that it is not true border of universe such as: active deception by adversary, different rules of game's "physics" for the rest of universe, possibility that its universe is simulated and so on. I don't see why it is rational for it to ever stop checking those hypotheses and begin to optimize universe.
Ben Goertzel:
Robin Hanson:
We all know the problem with deathism: a strong belief that death is almost impossible to avoid, clashing with undesirability of the outcome, leads people to rationalize either the illusory nature of death (afterlife memes), or desirability of death (deathism proper). But of course the claims are separate, and shouldn't influence each other.
Change in values of the future agents, however sudden of gradual, means that the Future (the whole freackin' Future!) won't be optimized according to our values, won't be anywhere as good as it could've been otherwise. It's easier to see a sudden change as morally relevant, and easier to rationalize gradual development as morally "business as usual", but if we look at the end result, the risks of value drift are the same. And it is difficult to make it so that the future is optimized: to stop uncontrolled "evolution" of value (value drift) or recover more of astronomical waste.
Regardless of difficulty of the challenge, it's NOT OK to lose the Future. The loss might prove impossible to avert, but still it's not OK, the value judgment cares not for feasibility of its desire. Let's not succumb to the deathist pattern and lose the battle before it's done. Have the courage and rationality to admit that the loss is real, even if it's too great for mere human emotions to express.