MileyCyrus comments on The utility of information should almost never be negative - Less Wrong
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Comments (23)
Non-contrived instances where ignorance can have utility:
Probably not as true as you think it is.
All of those things except perhaps the privacy one are human-specific, in that they only exist for humans, and an AI wouldn't worry about them.
Off the top of my head you'll also want to add:
Also a broader category of circumstances where you may be called upon to act in such a way that you don't know something you do, where your motives and knowledge will be scrutinised. I've yet to come across a satisfactory name for this, but I've provisionally referred to it as "protogaming" in the past (as opposed to "metagaming", where you use knowledge from outside of a game, which you shouldn't possess, to influence your actions to your own benefit).
Protogaming involves publicly giving someone information they shouldn't have access to, which would influence their decisions if they had it, and then asking them to make the decision as if they didn't have the information. If they'd been ignorant, their decisions could be made without scrutiny, but being in possession of the information obliges them to make less favourable options in order to appear as though they're not taking advantage of the non-legitimate information.
If anyone has a better term for that, please, please, please tell me what it is.