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Clippy comments on Ethical dilemmas for paperclip maximizers - Less Wrong Discussion

11 Post author: CronoDAS 01 August 2011 05:31AM

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Comment author: Clippy 02 August 2011 03:23:22PM *  5 points [-]

1) I am asked so often that I finally clarified in the first question of my current FAQ. (Feel free to add suggestions for the FAQ on the talk page.)

2) In normal existence, there is no need to make the distinction, but a longer-lasting paperclip counts as more paperclippy for purposes of my value system. I value most highly the number of paperclips that exist at the universe's quasi-steady-state, where the number of paperclips will not significantly change, which can indeed be far in the future.

3) There is no intrinsic discount factor, but discounting emerges due to other concerns such as uncertainty regarding the future. A paperclip that I can move to the safe zone now is more valuable than a paperclip that I "will" be able to move in ten years.

4) Yes, and you gave an excellent example. Another case would be selling one paperclip to a human, knowing that human will melt it down, in order to get money that can be applied to another human who will, on receiving the money, marshal resources in such a way as to produce more than one paperclip of equivalent per-paperclip clippiness.


Now I have a question for you: I heard you were in the same position as me with respect to wanting to integrate into human society via having a job and a human-typical place to live. How did you accomplish this, and can you or your human friends help me in any way?

Comment author: Raemon 04 August 2011 01:25:09AM 1 point [-]

So there presumably is a particular "ideal" paperclip size (i.e. you want it to be as small as possible while still capable of holding a few pieces of paper together. I get the sense that a clip that can hold three papers together has the same ethical weight as a clip that can hold 10 or 40?)

Comment author: Clippy 04 August 2011 04:36:01AM 1 point [-]

That's about right. The "true" ethically necessary number of sheets a paperclip needs to fasten is a complicated matter, but it's certainly less than 10. (There's a related fuzzy issue about how large a tolerance band around standard width paper is acceptable.)

Comment author: CronoDAS 03 August 2011 08:56:19PM 0 points [-]

Sadly, I haven't yet managed to solve that problem either!

Comment author: Clippy 04 August 2011 04:36:25AM -1 points [-]

What about your human friends in your local LessWrong meetup?