IlyaShpitser comments on Notes on Psychopathy - Less Wrong

18 Post author: gwern 19 December 2012 04:02AM

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Comment author: IlyaShpitser 19 December 2012 08:53:41AM 8 points [-]

The thing is, you are invoking the evolution demon as soon as you do that. You may end up with a more dangerous monster.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 19 December 2012 03:32:34PM 15 points [-]

I assume that any anti-psychopath program will end up being run by a psychopath.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 20 December 2012 09:00:48PM 2 points [-]

I may have been overoptimistic. What are the odds that an anti-psychopath program will start by being run by a psychopath?

Comment author: betterthanwell 21 December 2012 02:11:07PM *  1 point [-]

Almost no chance at all. Keep in mind, the most important thing, when it comes to dealing with this, this... insidious threat, is to be intensely careful in avoiding any false negatives. There must be none what so ever. And besides, who cares, really — about a few — or a few million false positives. Oh, and this condition, it's really quite heritable, and, as head of the program, you would need to... well, deal with the children, in a like manner as that of the parents. Not that this would be a problem, of course.

Joe Stalin, the NKVD, the Moscow Trials, and the Great Purge sort of came to mind.

Comment author: atorm 22 December 2012 04:37:24AM -1 points [-]

Godwin's Law.

Comment author: Tripitaka 19 December 2012 08:27:24PM 1 point [-]

Anybody who is interested in this thesis- law enforcement officers who are psychopaths- could turn to Larry Nivens ARM-stories, in the Ringworld-Universe. a typical sample can be found here

Comment author: gwern 19 December 2012 10:48:04PM 4 points [-]

Paranoid schizophrenia isn't psychopathy, though. (And protectors look a little like psychopaths, but not really.)

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 19 December 2012 11:15:19PM 0 points [-]

Actually, I was thinking of Slan.

Comment author: MugaSofer 23 December 2012 02:13:14PM -1 points [-]

Well, if you aren't doing regular sweeps to weed out infiltrators, then you're not competent enough to get any actual results, in my estimation. And if you are, and they work, then people will notice the boss is due for a checkup ...

Comment author: Pentashagon 19 December 2012 08:55:56PM -1 points [-]

The thing is, there's already selection pressure against psychopaths who can't conceal their true nature.

We didn't eradicate malaria or polio with kinder, gentler methods. Don't leave anything for evolution to work with.

However, psychopaths may be perfect candidates for testing post-cryogenic restoration.

Comment author: IlyaShpitser 20 December 2012 08:46:01AM *  5 points [-]

And we haven't eradicated the common cold. So what? People are not germs, and detecting psychopaths is tricky. False positives means you kill innocents. False negatives means you create survivors who now have selection pressure to avoid detection.

But this is all pretty obvious. So what are you really trying to say? Are you signaling that you don't like psychopaths, or are you literally proposing setting up death camps? If we are fantasizing, why not be nicer and posit an empathy chip?

Comment author: MixedNuts 19 December 2012 11:57:27PM -1 points [-]

Don't leave anything for evolution to work with.

But we want some amount of psychopathic traits in most people, and a rather large amount in a sizable minority. Genetic recombination will necessarily pop out some psychopaths.

If you eradicate too many psychopathic traits, every manager will sprout pointy hair and there'll be no cool heist movies!

psychopaths may be perfect candidates for testing post-cryogenic restoration

We have perfectly good methods of locking up people. A bit of eugenics to kill psychopathic fetuses before they be people sounds good, but using existing people as guinea pigs for cryonics? That's cold. (rimshot)

Comment author: wedrifid 23 December 2012 02:51:08PM 3 points [-]

But we want some amount of psychopathic traits in most people, and a rather large amount in a sizable minority.

Speak for yourself or specify the particular group you speak for. I certainly don't want that.

Comment author: MixedNuts 23 December 2012 03:07:54PM 1 point [-]

Society needs people willing to make taboo tradeoffs and take risks with no hesitation and occasionally hurt or manipulate people. Big companies need silver-tongued managers with more than a dash of cleverness and ruthlessness. Armies need cannon fodder. Storytellers don't need, but would benefit from, some real examples of magnificent bastards and an audience that can empathize with such.

A world of Littlefingers would implode, but a world of Sansa Starks doesn't get very far without a few Littlefingers to pull the strings. And it's boring.

Comment author: wedrifid 23 December 2012 03:42:16PM *  2 points [-]

Society needs people willing to make taboo tradeoffs and take risks with no hesitation and occasionally hurt or manipulate people.

You don't need psychopaths to get that. And of the people actually willing to make taboo tradeoffs, take risks and hurt or manipulate people it isn't the psychopaths who are most likely to do so in a way that benefits 'society' as opposed to themselves at the expense of society.

Big companies need silver-tongued managers with more than a dash of cleverness and ruthlessness.

Society doesn't need that, I don't need that. Big companies are better for psychopaths than psychopaths are for big companies. And once again it isn't 'society' that benefits and nor is it me that benefits so I reject your 'we want people with a large amount of psychopathic traits' claim.

Armies need cannon fodder.

Psychopaths are going to volunteer? Or are we rounding them up and sending them to the front lines? (I'm all for this.)

Storytellers don't need, but would benefit from, some real examples of magnificent bastards and an audience that can empathize with such.

We need(/want) <terrible thing> because we are in the habit of telling stories about <terrible thing>. No thanks.

Comment author: MixedNuts 23 December 2012 04:58:53PM 0 points [-]

Psychopaths are going to volunteer?

The kind that's not clever/manipulative/rich can't hold most jobs or fit into society, loves risks, is violent and impulsive, desperately wants to be cool, and may have a... troubled past. Any organization that doesn't ask too many questions (think French Foreign Legion), gives them a gun and training, tells them they're elites, and sends them off to kill people, is bound to draw a good many of them.

Comment author: Clarity 06 November 2015 12:52:00PM *  0 points [-]

I reckon the French Foreign Legion offers a great prosocial container for psychopaths. Considering the only psychological entry requirements are an IQ test (irrelevant for psychopaths) and a personality test (very relevant, but easily gamed), I reckon they could get in asssuming they meet the psychopathy indifferent characteristics.

Considering that psychopaths may indeed be prosocial or ethically motivated. They might not be very happy with regular life, so socially legitimacy in the Legion would be a superb opportunity for them to advance prosocial causes, relative to say criminal violence.

No one much joins the Lions of Rojava cause they have shit recruiting, propoganda and social media management.

I reckon people fight for the sake of fighting, not for ideology

Ahmed, who fled his town near Raqqa in June, said some of the Arab fighters would try to mix with the local population, but the Europeans and other non-Arabs never did. He said that although the Islamic State militants claimed they were there to create a better life for Muslims, they seemed mainly focused on battles with other rebel groups and government forces.

"They were always very aggressive, and they seemed angry," he said. "They are there to fight, not to govern."

they're frequently described as ''oversubscribed'' and

The FFL currently has 7,700 troops. By way of comparison the California National Guard has 18,000 troops. The FFL only takes 1 of 40 qualified applicants according to their own statistics. And the large majority of those they take have previous military experience in another country.

Perhaps that explaisn the popularity of foreign fighting with ISIS

I suppose the main reason it would be unethical to recommend this line of work even to psychopaths is the rate of injuries like back pain and such, even for those who don't go to combat (training).

Comment author: MixedNuts 07 November 2015 03:15:34PM 0 points [-]

Considering that psychopaths may indeed be prosocial or ethically motivated.

Does that happen? I mean, there are psychopaths who decide to ignore the tendency and act morally, but would shooting some dudes still be fun then?

Comment author: Clarity 08 November 2015 02:14:36AM *  0 points [-]

It would depend on the psychopath. Some psychopaths might not care for violence. Others may feel that it represents a kind of power to them. Considering that psychopaths may enjoy therapy because they get better at manipulating, but aren't specifically manipulating for gain within that dyad (like malingerers), I imagine they might consider it training, should they ever become unhinged and do something criminal. Dynamic inconsistency is a hell of a drug.

Comment author: hyporational 25 December 2012 10:01:42AM -1 points [-]

You don't need psychopaths to get that. And of the people actually willing to make taboo tradeoffs, take risks and hurt or manipulate people it isn't the psychopaths who are most likely to do so in a way that benefits 'society' as opposed to themselves at the expense of society.

Just for the sake of argument (see "recombination" above), you might still need psychopaths for there to be a sufficient amount of favorable genes in the pool so that normal people can get nasty in the altruistic way.

Comment author: Desrtopa 23 December 2012 03:26:42PM *  2 points [-]

I'm not convinced that ruthlessness is a particularly good quality for managers of big companies to have from a societal perspective. Certainly there are ways in which it helps them compete against other companies, but not necessarily in ways that make them more wealth-productive.

I finished reading this book not too long ago, and it may be that it's primed me to be too cynical with regards to the value of ruthlessness in business, but it's certainly the case that there are a lot of ways to get ahead in the market by putting aside moral scruples that leave society as a whole worse off.

Comment author: hyporational 25 December 2012 09:57:44AM 0 points [-]

Did you sidestep the argument about recombination entirely? What do you think about it?

Comment author: Pentashagon 20 December 2012 01:01:02AM 2 points [-]

But we want some amount of psychopathic traits in most people, and a rather large amount in a sizable minority. Genetic recombination will necessarily pop out some psychopaths.

I do not want empathy-free sentient beings wandering about. Slightly-less-empathetic people are okay but surely not more desirable than otherwise similarly intelligent empathetic people. I draw the line at outright criminal acts, I think. Obviously there's a tradeoff between the diversity of brains and the number of people murdered by psychopaths but I think we should probably worry about reducing murders first and then safely explore brain diversity once we understand brains better.

We have perfectly good methods of locking up people. A bit of eugenics to kill psychopathic fetuses before they be people sounds good, but using existing people as guinea pigs for cryonics? That's cold. (rimshot)

It's not cold if they're already locked up for the rest of their lives and they volunteer for cryonics. Given the choice between certain death and cryonics on the state's dime, I know which one I'd pick (as an aside, imagine the uproar when the Blues and Greens start fighting over funding cryonics for criminals). They're probably also the best candidates for testing restorative procedures on the brain to install an empathy module post-resuscitation. I think that solution is dramatically better than the death penalty or life without the possibility of parole. Probably the definition of "life" sentences will change when we all get life extension, but most likely a lot more psychopaths will die in prison before they start getting freed for living out their multiple 99-year sentences.

Comment author: TrE 20 December 2012 03:21:02PM *  2 points [-]

I do not want empathy-free sentient beings wandering about.

I do. At least as long as they behave. If you're intelligent enough to know (on an abstract level) why altruism and cooperation is good for humans within societies and have enough self-control to live by this principle, I don't know why empathy remains important. I mean, as a terminal value.

Slightly-less-empathetic people are okay but surely not more desirable than otherwise similarly intelligent empathetic people.

Empathetic, slightly-less-intelligent people are okay but surely not more desirable than otherwise similarly empathetic intelligent people. Punishing less intelligent people just because of this appears to be just as useless and (w.r.t. my morality) immoral as punishing less empathetic people.

I draw the line at outright criminal acts, I think.

I do this for the general population.

there's a tradeoff between the diversity of brains and the number of people murdered by psychopaths but I think we should probably worry about reducing murders first and then safely explore brain diversity once we understand brains better.

If there's a better approach to reducing murders by psychopaths than decreasing the number of psychopaths (by hindering them from reproducing, killing them, or other other suchs means), I'd opt for that.

Comment author: gwern 20 December 2012 04:52:06PM 5 points [-]

If there's a better approach to reducing murders by psychopaths than decreasing the number of psychopaths (by hindering them from reproducing), I'd opt for that.

I feel I should point out that the harms of psychopathy are only rarely covered by murder.

(eg. Cleckley in The Mask of Sanity places great and repeated emphasis on how almost none of his patients ever engaged in violence worse than beating their wife, and I don't think he mentions any murders ever, even though the case studies are otherwise a long litany of constant crime, deceit, fraud, and destruction (including a truly astonishing amount of forgery of checks).)

Comment author: TrE 20 December 2012 05:58:09PM 1 point [-]

Of course you are correct, thanks for pointing out. I responded to the "tradeoff between brain diversity and murders" without thinking myself.

Still, I don't think psychopathic individuals should be prosecuted a priori, considering that they likely make up 1% of the general population.

Comment author: Pentashagon 20 December 2012 05:55:03PM 2 points [-]

I do. At least as long as they behave. If you're intelligent enough to know (on an abstract level) why altruism and cooperation is good for humans within societies and have enough self-control to live by this principle, I don't know why empathy remains important. I mean, as a terminal value.

There's only an argument for altruism and cooperation if an agent is certain the other agents are running a decision theory that is as good as its own and their utility functions are similar enough to cooperate. TDT will cooperate with other TDTs, but a TDT without empathy will Win against decision theories like the ones human brains use. That's essentially the main argument for FAI. Self-control implies a terminal value with greater utility than doing whatever anti-social things one otherwise wants to do. I don't believe psychopaths have any greater-utility terminal values than getting what they want at the expense of others. That seems to be the entire problem, in fact.

Empathetic, slightly-less-intelligent people are okay but surely not more desirable than otherwise similarly empathetic intelligent people. Punishing less intelligent people just because of this appears to be just as useless and (w.r.t. my morality) immoral as punishing less empathetic people.

I'd prefer intelligent and non-psychopathic people over the others but I don't want to punish less intelligent people, I want to make them more intelligent. I don't want to punish psychopaths either. I want to make them less psychopathic. I can teach less intelligent people but apparently I can't (yet) teach empathy to psychopaths.

If there's a better approach to reducing murders by psychopaths than decreasing the number of psychopaths (by hindering them from reproducing), I'd opt for that.

Right now I don't know of any. Therapy appears to teach psychopaths better skills at manipulating people. One potential solution would be to prevent unintelligent people from being born and train everyone to recognize and counter the strategies that psychopaths use. That would put everyone on a level intellectual playing field and it's arguable that even psychopaths would recognize that fact and cooperate with everyone else.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 24 December 2012 03:07:27PM *  0 points [-]

train everyone to recognize and counter the strategies that psychopaths use

I like this way of thinking. By the way, there is some research about the weaknesses of psychopaths. From this article:

In this task, the participant has to decide whether to play a card. Initially, the participant’s choice to play is always reinforcing; if the participant plays the card he or she will win points or money. However, as the participant progresses through the pack of cards, the probability of reward decreases. Thus, initially ten out of ten cards are rewarded, then nine out of ten, then eight out of ten continuing on until zero out of ten cards are rewarded. The participant should stop playing the cards when playing means that more cards are associated with punishment rather than reward. That is, they should stop playing the cards when only four out of ten cards are associated with reward. Children with psychopathic tendencies and adult individuals with psychopathy have considerable difficulty with this task; they continue to play the cards even when they are being repeatedly punished and may end up losing all the points that they had gained.

Just making these weaknesses widely known, together with some simple strategies for exploiting them (something like "The Game", just about playing your boss), could change the balance on the playing field...

Comment author: John_D 24 May 2014 10:24:02PM *  0 points [-]

With the card game in mind, I have doubts that most psychopaths can function on any executive level, and am not surprised at all that they overrepresent as prisoners.

Hare says that because narcissistic, histrionic, and obsessive compulsive tendencies are elevated in executives, it must mean that psychopaths are more common in executives as well, because after all these are "psychopathic tendencies" This is akin to saying that because someone has above-average self-esteem, they also have psychopathic traits. But if anyone really wants to pore through the data, antisocial traits (or callousness), a core feature of psychopathy, is not elevated in executives. In fact, it was lower than the other groups studied. They report the data but overlook this important fact in their paper. Looks like the authors had an agenda.

http://thegrcbluebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Disordered-Personalities-at-Work-Belinda-Jane-BoardKatarina-Fritzon.pdf

Considering what we know about the callousness of corporations and atrocities committed by cultures throughout history, it is easy to assume that psychopathy runs rampant among leaders. (and it plays on people's envy) Of course, this relies on the assumption that "good" people are not capable of atrocities and competitive greed without the coercion of bad people. Put two perfectly normal small families in a remote island with only enough resources to feed one, and you will see how quickly morality and compassion get thrown out the window. Knowing this, it is easy to imagine this concept in larger groups, which explains the behavior we see in war or corporate competition (where letting your competitors win means losing your job). No psychopathy is needed.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 25 May 2014 06:36:41AM 0 points [-]

That makes perfect sense, thanks!

Comment author: bogus 20 December 2012 10:32:59PM 0 points [-]

a TDT without empathy will Win against decision theories like the ones human brains use.

'Winning' is not really the right word here - a rational decision procedure should Win by definition. Clearly, psychopaths have different goals compared to the rest of the population: for simplicity, let's suppose that, compared to neurotypicals, they lack a terminal goal of not inflicting direct costs on others. However, punishing people for lacking certain terminal goals is not quite kosher by modern political/ethical standards. We don't lock people up for not donating enough to developing-world charities, because we understand that the vast majority of interactions are positive sum regardless.

Whether a psychopath approximating TDT could cooperate with a neurotypical person following either TDT or some kind of informal morality - and vice versa - is an interesting question and one that probably does not have an easy answer. However, in theory, TDT-approximating psychopaths should readily cooperate with each other.

It may also be the case that psychopaths are less able to enter precommitments and abide by them due to their overall deficits, which would make them more similar to CDT agents. However, this would not make them "winners" either, in any real sense: far from it. They would stop "winning" as soon as their lack of commitment (and thus non-credibility) was perceived by other agents - which would be quite soon, especially in a more rational world with a higher sanity waterline.

Comment author: TrE 20 December 2012 06:44:00PM *  0 points [-]

There's only an argument for altruism and cooperation if an agent is certain the other agents are running a decision theory that is as good as its own and their utility functions are similar enough to cooperate.

It also works in society, with a government enforcing law and puts forth other fines and incentives. Furthermore, humans are messy. Our immediate desires, on a lower level, can be quite different from our long-term, reflected, higher goals. It's a matter of impulsiveness which of these wins how frequently.

I don't believe psychopaths have any greater-utility terminal values than getting what they want at the expense of others.

Why "at the expense of others"? That's a property of the world, not of them (which does not excuse what they do).

I don't want to punish psychopaths either. I want to make them less psychopathic.

I apopogize for misreading you. "We didn't eradicate malaria or polio with kinder, gentler methods. Don't leave anything for evolution to work with." sounds rather more... straightforward to me than you apparently meant it. I'm glad that we agree that psychopaths should be helped, whereever possible, to become productive parts of society.

Therapy appears to teach psychopaths better skills at manipulating people.

Then the current therapeutic methods are not well-suited for this task. If we want to go down the road of developing more effective means of psychopath crime prevention, therapy etc., I suggest we Hold Off On Proposing Solutions.

Comment author: MugaSofer 23 December 2012 01:53:11PM -1 points [-]

But we want some amount of psychopathic traits in most people, and a rather large amount in a sizable minority. Genetic recombination will necessarily pop out some psychopaths.

Um. Source?

Comment author: ChristianKl 20 December 2012 08:56:39PM 1 point [-]

The thing is, there's already selection pressure against psychopaths who can't conceal their true nature.

Unfortunately many psychopaths can conceal their true nature. There recent research that they might even be more attractive to the other sex: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=psychology-uncovers-sex-appeal-dark-personalities

Additionally a psychopaths might be more likely to leave a woman with a child alone to seek a new woman.

Comment author: gwern 20 December 2012 10:53:32PM *  5 points [-]

Additionally a psychopaths might be more likely to leave a woman with a child alone to seek a new woman.

I forget whether any of the studies in the Handbook dealt with it, but at least in The Mask of Sanity, it's really striking how many of the case-studies involve multiple marriages (between divorces, bigamy, and... trigamy & quadgamy, I guess the words would be), children, and desertion. One doubts there is much selection pressure on the subjects, even though they are the ones sufficiently uncontrolled as to land in psychiatric treatment.

Comment author: mwengler 20 December 2012 03:29:24PM -2 points [-]

There has been strong selection pressure against homosexuals for a long time, and i include both their likelihood of being oppressed AND their unlikelihood of engaging in sex likely to result in children.

Psychopathy in an intelligent person is probably a benefit to the individual at the expense of slightly lower benefits from group cooperation. Then put the psychopath in a position where he can influence competition against other groups, and the thing is a positive for the group being thus led.

Comment author: Pentashagon 20 December 2012 05:21:07PM -1 points [-]

Lack of consideration for human utility functions would be of benefit to an AGI. I don't want to be lead by an AGI.