Doesn't this suggest a certain room for improvement? For example, choosing a different metal might enable the construction of less-expensive paperclips, or perhaps corrugating the wire (like a hairpin) might enable the clip to retain its strength while using less material in its construction.
Certainly, you can use different metals, and you can use strengthening techniques that allow less metal to make a paperclip of the same strength and fatigue life. But it has to be some kind of metal, it has to hold several sheets of paper together, and it has to have standard shape.
Just because unclippy agents sometimes try to make better paperclips doesn't mean that clippy agents shouldn't try to do so.
Right, but these new designs aren't "better paperclips"; they're not paperclips at all.
...Doesn't this suggest a certain room for improvement? For example, choosing a different metal might enable the construction of less-expensive paperclips, or perhaps corrugating the wire (like a hairpin) might enable the clip to retain its strength while using less material in its construction.
Certainly, you can use different metals, and you can use strengthening techniques that allow less metal to make a paperclip of the same strength and fatigue life. But it has to be some kind of metal, it has to hold several sheets of paper together, and it has to
Nice article about paperclip industry, I'm sure it will be of considerable interest to many LessWrong readers.