helpful people can point me to specific articles
I suggest taking a look at the Complexity of Value page on the LW wiki, not because "complexity of value" as defined there is exactly what I think you're missing (it isn't) but because several of the links there will take you to relevant stuff in (as you put it) the canons. The "Fake Utility Functions" post mentioned there and its predecessors are worth a read, for instance. Also "Value is Fragile" and "The Hidden Complexity of Wishes".
(All this talk of "canons&...
This topic comes up every once in a while. In fact, one of the more recent threads was started by me, though it may not be obvious to you at first how that thread is related to this topic.
I think it's actually fun to talk about the structure of an "ultra-stable metric" or even an algorithm by which some kind of "living metric" may be established and then evolved/curated as the state of scientific knowledge evolves.
For a shared and stable value metric to function as a solution to the AI alignment problem it would need also to be:
To illustrate the last requirement, let me make an example. Let's suppose that to a new AI is given the task of dividing some fund between the existing four prototype of nuclear fusion plants. It will need to calculate the value of each prototype and their very different supply chains. But it also need to calculate the value of th...
I think what you're missing is that metrics are difficult - I've written about that point in a number of contexts; www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/06/09/goodharts-law-and-why-measurement-is-hard/
There are more specific metric / goal problems with AI; Eliezer wrote this https://intelligence.org/2016/12/28/ai-alignment-why-its-hard-and-where-to-start/ - and Dario Amodei has been working on it as well; https://openai.com/blog/faulty-reward-functions/ - and there is a lot more in this vein!
What does "ideal" mean to you?
It means, in this context, "the first word of the technical term 'ideal money' which Flinter has been using, and which I am hoping at some point he will give us his actual definition of".
If I start by saying there IS such a currency? What does "ideal" mean to you?
You began by saying this:
I would like to suggest, as a blanket observation and proposal, that most of these difficult problems described, especially on a site like this, are easily solvable with the introduction of an objective and ultra-stable metric for valuation.
which, as I said at the time, looks at least as much like "There is such a metric" as like "Let's explore the consequences of having such a metric". Then later you said "It converges on money" (not, e.g., "it and money converge on a single coherent metric of value"). Then when asked whether you were saying that Nash has actually found an incorruptible measure of value, you said yes.
I appreciate that when asked explicitly whether such a thing exists you say no. But you don't seem to be taking any steps to avoid giving the impression that it's already around.
I did not come here to specifically make claims in regard to AI.
Nope. But you introduced this whole business in the context of AI value alignment, and the possible relevance of your (interpretation of Nash's) proposal to the Less Wrong community rests partly on its applicability to that sort of problem.
What does it mean to ignore Nash's works, his argument, and the general concept of what Ideal Money is ... and then to say that my delivery and argument is weak in regard to AI?
I'm here discussing this stuff with you. I am not (so far as I am aware) ignoring anything you say. What exactly is your objection? That I didn't, as soon as you mentioned John Nash, go off and spend a week studying his thoughts on this matter before responding to you? I have read the Nash lecture you linked, and also his earlier paper on Ideal Money published in the Southern Economic Journal. What do you think I am ignoring, and why do you think I am ignoring it?
But your question is an odd one. It seems to be asking, more or less, "How dare you have interests and priorities that differ from mine?". I hope it's clear that that question isn't actually the sort that deserves an answer.
No you have not understood the nature of money. A money is chosen by the general market, it is propriety.
I think I understand the nature of money OK, but I'm not sure I understand what you are saying about it. "A money"? Do you mean a currency, or do you mean a monetary valuation of a good, or something else? What is "the general market", in a world where there are lots and lots of different markets, many of which use different currencies? In the language I speak, "propriety" mostly means "the quality of being proper" which seems obviously not to be your meaning. It also (much less commonly) means "ownership", which seems a more likely meaning, but I'm not sure what it actually means to say "money is ownership". Would you care to clarify?
This is what I mean to say in this regard, no more, no less.
It seems to me entirely different from your earlier statements to which I was replying. Perhaps everything will become clearer when you explain more carefully what you mean by "A money is chosen by the general market, it is propriety".
To tell me you don't like money therefore not "everyone" uses it [...]
Clearly our difficulties of communication run both ways. I have told you neither of those things. I like money a great deal, and while indeed not everyone uses it (there are, I think, some societies around that don't use money) it's close enough to universally used for most purposes. (Though not everyone uses the same money, of course.)
I genuinely don't see how to get from anything I have said to "you don't like money therefore not everyone uses it".
There is nothing to argue about in regard to pointing out that we converge on it, in the sense that we all socially agree to it.
I think, again, some clarification is called for. When you spoke of "converging on money", you surely didn't just mean that (almost) everyone uses money. The claim I thought you were making, in context, was something like this: "If we imagine people getting smarter and more rational without limit, their value systems will necessarily converge to a particular limit, and that limit is money." (Which, in turn, I take to mean something like this: to decide which of X and Y is better, compute their prices and compare numerically.) It wasn't clear at the time what sort of "money" you meant, but you said explicitly that the results are knowable and had been found by John Nash. All of this goes much, much further than saying that we all use money, and further than saying that we have (or might in the future hope to have) a consistent set of prices for tradeable goods.
It would be very helpful if you would say clearly and explicitly what you mean by saying that values "converge on money".
[...] you specifically [...] or one, or two people [...]
I mentioned my own attitudes not in order to say "I am a counterexample, therefore your universal generalization is false" but to say "I am a counterexample, and I see no reason to think I am vastly atypical, therefore your universal generalization is probably badly false". I apologize if that wasn't clear enough.
It means, in this context, "the first word of the technical term 'ideal money' which Flinter has been using, and which I am hoping at some point he will give us his actual definition of".
Ideal, the standard definition, means implies that it is conceptual.
...You began by saying this:
I would like to suggest, as a blanket observation and proposal, that most of these difficult problems described, especially on a site like this, are easily solvable with the introduction of an objective and ultra-stable metric for valuation.
which, as I said at the ti
I am not perfectly sure how this site has worked (although I skimmed the "tutorials") and I am notorious for not understanding systems as easily and quickly as the general public might. At the same time I suspect a place like this is for me, for what I can offer but also for what I can receive (ie I intend on (fully) traversing the various canons).
I also value compression and time in this sense, and so I think I can propose a subject that might serve as an "ideal introduction" (I have an accurate meaning for this phrase I won't introduce atm).
I've read a lot of posts/blogs/papers that are arguments which are founded on a certain difficulties, where the observation and admission of this difficulty leads the author and the reader (and perhaps the originator of the problem/solution outlines) to defer to some form of a (relative to what will follow) long winded solution.
I would like to suggest, as a blanket observation and proposal, that most of these difficult problems described, especially on a site like this, are easily solvable with the introduction of an objective and ultra-stable metric for valuation.
I think maybe at first this will seem like an empty proposal. I think then, and also, some will see it as devilry (which I doubt anyone here thinks exists). And I think I will be accused of many of the fallacies and pitfalls that have already been previously warned about in the canons.
That latter point I think might suggest that I might learn well and fast from this post as interested and helpful people can point me to specific articles and I WILL read them with sincere intent to understand them (so far they are very well written in the sense that I feel I understand them because they are simple enough) and I will ask questions.
But I also think ultimately it will be shown that my proposal and my understanding of it doesn't really fall to any of these traps, and as I learn the canonical arguments I will be able to show how my proposal properly addresses them.