eli_sennesh comments on Siren worlds and the perils of over-optimised search - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 07 April 2014 11:00AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 17 April 2014 11:26:02PM -1 points [-]

However, every step happens voluntarily because what comes after is seen as better than what is before, and I don't see why I should consider the final outcome bad.

So you're using a "volunteerism ethics" in which whatever agents choose voluntarily, for some definition of voluntary, is acceptable, even when the agents may have their values changed in the process and the end result is not considered desirable by the original agents? You only care about the particular voluntariness of the particular choices?

Huh. I suppose it works, but I wouldn't take over the universe with it.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 18 April 2014 07:08:40AM 0 points [-]

So you're using a "volunteerism ethics" in which whatever agents choose voluntarily, for some definition of voluntary, is acceptable, even when the agents may have their values changed in the process and the end result is not considered desirable by the original agents? You only care about the particular voluntariness of the particular choices?

When it happens fast, we call it wireheading. When it happens slowly, we call it the march of progress.

Comment author: [deleted] 19 April 2014 02:46:29PM *  -1 points [-]

Eehhhhhh.... Since I started reading Railton's "Moral Realism" I've found myself disagreeing with the view that our consciously held beliefs about our values really are our terminal values. Railton's reduction from values to facts allows for a distinction between the actual March of Progress and non-forcible wireheading.