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Ghatanathoah comments on A definition of wireheading - Less Wrong
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Humans do desire finding a mate. However, they also value sexual pleasure and looking at naked people as ends in themselves. Finding a mate and having sex with them is obviously the ideal outcome since it satisfies both of those values at the same time. But pornography and masturbation are better than nothing, they satisfy one of those values.
People say they wish they could have sex with a mate instead of having to masturbate to porn. But that doesn't mean they don't value porn or masturbation, it just means that sex with a mate is even more valuable. They aren't fooling themselves, they're just satisfying their desire in a less effective manner, because they lack access to more efficient means.
Your examples are terrific when discussing the problems an agent with a utility function has when it is trying to create another agent and imbue it with the same utility function. I think that was the point of your essay.
Wireheading is kind of like this. Wireheading is when an agent simplifies its utility function for easier computation and then continues to follow the simplified version even in instances where it seriously conflicts with the real utility function. I don't think pornography is an example of this, because most people will drop pornography immediately if they get a chance at real sex. This indicates pornography is probably a less efficient way at obtaining the values that sex obtains, rather than a form of wire-heading.
I think you could say that about practically any example. You could say that people watching Friends are fulfilling some of their values by learning about social interaction - rather than just feeding themselves a fake social life in which they have really funny quirky friends. You could say that ladies with cute dogs are fulfilling their desire to love and be loved - rather than creating a fake baby to satisfy their maternal instincts. We won't find a perfect example, we just want a pretty good one.
Me neither. I was trying to characterise the pornography problem - not the wirehead problem.
Unwillingness to replace the fake simulation with the real thing (if it is freely available) isn't really a feature of the pornography problem. The real thing may well be better than the fake simulation. That doesn't represent a problem with the example, but rather is a widespread feature of the phenomenon being characterized.