The guy in the example happens to terminally value being attracted to children. I didn't mean that that's what being a pedophile means.
Aside from that, I am not sure how the way this ties into "A rational agent should never change its utility function" is unclear - he observes his impulses, interprets them as his goals, and seeks to maintain them.
As for SOs? Yes, I suppose many people would so prefer. I'm not an ideal romantic, and I have had so little trouble avoiding straying that I feel no need to get rid of them to make my life easier.
Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying.
There's a recent science fiction story that I can't recall the name of, in which the narrator is traveling somewhere via plane, and the security check includes a brain scan for deviance. The narrator is a pedophile. Everyone who sees the results of the scan is horrified--not that he's a pedophile, but that his particular brain abnormality is easily fixed, so that means he's chosen to remain a pedophile. He's closely monitored, so he'll never be able to act on those desires, but he keeps them anyway, because that's part of who he is.
What would you do in his place?
In the language of good old-fashioned AI, his pedophilia is a goal or a terminal value. "Fixing" him means changing or erasing that value. People here sometimes say that a rational agent should never change its terminal values. (If one goal is unobtainable, the agent will simply not pursue that goal.) Why, then, can we imagine the man being tempted to do so? Would it be a failure of rationality?
If the answer is that one terminal value can rationally set a goal to change another terminal value, then either