Rhwawn comments on SMBC comic: poorly programmed average-utility-maximizing AI - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Jonathan_Graehl 06 April 2012 07:18AM

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Comment author: Rhwawn 06 April 2012 08:09:42PM 10 points [-]

Go classical - 'lotus-eating'.

Comment author: Dmytry 06 April 2012 09:11:44PM *  1 point [-]

Good one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-eaters

That's the ancient greeks writing about hypothetical wireheads. (the 'moral philosophy' is perhaps a bad choice of word for search for greek stuff; ethics is the greek word)

Comment author: Emile 06 April 2012 08:56:44PM *  1 point [-]

A bit of search around that showed nearly no reference to lotus eating/lotus eater in moral philosophy.

Something much closer to "wireheading" would be hedonism, and more specifically Nozick's Experience Machine, which is pretty much wireheading, but isn't thousands of years old, and has been referenced here.

(And the term "wirehead" as used here probably comes from the Known Space stories, so probably predates Nozick's 1974 book)

Comment author: Rhwawn 06 April 2012 09:14:41PM 2 points [-]

I don't think you looked very hard - I turned up a few books apparently on moral philosophy by searching in Google Books for 'moral ("lotus eating" OR "lotus-eating" OR "lotus eater" OR "lotus-eater")'.

And yes, I'm pretty sure the wirehead term comes from Niven's Known Space. I've never seen any other origin discussed.

Comment author: Dmytry 06 April 2012 09:03:19PM *  2 points [-]

Well, for one thing, it ought to be obvious that Mohammed would have banned a wire into the pleasure centre, but lacking the wires, he just banned the alcohol and other intoxicants. The concept of 'wrong' ways of seeking the pleasure is very, very old.