Live data from Hacker News

Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

thoughtinfection.com

61–70 of 99 posts

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#61
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some would disagree that the purpose of existence is to promote happiness. Robert Nozick offered this thought experiment to which I would not opt to maximize happiness: > Nozick asks us to imagine a machine that could give us whatever desirable or pleasurable experiences we could want. Psychologists have figured out a way to stimulate a person's brain to induce pleasurable experiences that the subject could not disti…

I wonder what Robert Nozick would think of recreational drug use. That is as close to that "machine" that we have in reality and its pretty clear people are willing to accept/risk the negative impacts and use such drugs. This being the case, I'm pretty sure, people would use that machine if it was legal and cheap. Similarly, I'm pretty sure at least some of those people would prefer it to real life. Similarly, the on…

Of course some unhappy with their lives prefer to live in an alternate reality. I don't mean to suggest everyone would prefer "real life" but that the majority of people don't simply chose to maximize happiness at the expense of other things.

One could argue that the value you get from your "real life" relationships with people are nothing more than a simple chemical reaction taking place in your brain that could also be simulated.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't you?

A game is more fun without the cheat-code.

You live life with significantly more "cheat codes" than the rest of the world, now what makes you think you aren't already living with "cheat codes" you aren't aware of? Since you could also program your reality to enjoy the benefits of the "cheat codes" without actually being aware of them, then there's a bit of cosmic irony to your statement.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#63

Thinking about this some more, it would seem that if we really have a Capital Maximizer then the system's process toward its objective (creating capital) is highly inefficient. If your goal is to create capital in the world you need better infrastructure, after all what capital is more useful than that which can be easily used to create more capital? Long term, if you're a Capital Maximizer trapped on this planet, yo…

There are currently a few rules crippling the Capital Maximizer:

1) Don't think in a longer term than five years. That's risky.

2) Labor is the worst expense to have, so minimize the amount of expensively useful work that has to be done.

3) Collude with others when it's gainful, but don't coordinate with others to get around rules (1) and (2). Coordination is for commies.

"It does often seem that, whenever there is a choice between one option that makes capitalism seem the only possible economic system, and another that would actually make capitalism a more viable economic system, neoliberalism means always choosing the former. The combined result is a relentless campaign against the human imagination." -- David Graeber

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#64

Wait, what? Capitalism maximizes "giving people what they want". This is much closer to the benevolent AI models than to paperclip maxizers.

>Capitalism maximizes "giving people what they want". This is much closer to the benevolent AI models than to paperclip maxizers.

Yes, I'm sure that what I want involves working lots of hours to buy Boston real-estate. That surely wasn't determined for me by capitalism, in roughly the same way that a not-quite benevolent AI might determine that what I really ought to want is paperclips.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#65
post #36
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some would disagree that the purpose of existence is to promote happiness. Robert Nozick offered this thought experiment to which I would not opt to maximize happiness: > Nozick asks us to imagine a machine that could give us whatever desirable or pleasurable experiences we could want. Psychologists have figured out a way to stimulate a person's brain to induce pleasurable experiences that the subject could not disti…

The problem here is that you've created a scenario that talks about a single human brain, but "maximizing human happiness" doesn't refer to any single person's brain. It refers the state of our entire social environment as viewed through the aggregate of individual experience. And you're probably vastly underestimating the complexity and comprehensiveness demanded of such a machine.

Would I like to impose the experience machine to all of humanity or at least all those that I love?

My answer doesn't change. Actually, I would go to great lengths to prevent imposing such a fate on humanity.

I may be naive in thinking this but human emotions and euphoria can probably be boiled down to a chemical reaction in our brain such that brain activity of someone experiencing something pleasurable in "real life" and that of someone taking a substance simulating these same feelings would be indistinguishable.

However, I believe there is so much more to existence than our own perception even though I am not spiritual at all.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#66
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is just a subset of intelligence. You absolutely can describe capitalism as an intelligent system since it is primarily made up of units (people) which are intelligent. If capitalism didn't have a coherent behavior, then how could we ever rely upon it as a primary driver of our economy? It must be coherent and on some level understandable for us to make predictions around it.

You can call an ecosystem 'intelligent' if you want to, I suppose, but there's not really any way to discuss it as a 'maximizer' when it has no goals and no intentional behavior. You could as easily describe water as a 'gravitational potential' minimizer - it has a collective aggregate behavior that you can characterize, but that doesn't make it intelligent by most definitions of the word. >If capitalism didn't have…

Every time I start writing a response to this, I can't help but feel it will simply be misinterpreted. I thought my original response was pretty succinct and clear. If you'd like to continue, please select one discrepancy and I'll be happy to discuss it further with you.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#67
I disagree with much of what was written, but I find it hard to address what seems, to me, more like a long analogy than anything else.

"Capitalism" doesn't maximize "capital", in any sense. The word "capital" generally refers either: to some asset that might be used in production, such as a piece of machinery; or structures that might render services over a time, like buildings; or to some sum which might be used in buying either of these, through financial services.

Now, "capital" wouldn't be maximized by "capitalist" firms. Why should they? Firms produce additional capital units so long as they can be sold above production cost, but they won't produce indefinitely. They are concerned with their profits, not with the amount of product. They aren't even concerned with the products' value, so long as it is above production costs. Hence, there's no incentive to inflate the capital good prices, which would be necessary to maximize the amount of money "capital".

Also, an it really be said that capitalism is an adaptive intelligence system? That, I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell. On the other hand, human interaction is unstructured enough that it seems unlikely that there's any goal to such supposed intelligence, or that it has capital-maximization as it's goal. Rather, I see a collection of different goals, each corresponding to different agents, and some of which might even be contradictory. The noisy neighbor, the ambitious monopolist, or the NIMBY all seek to maximize their private benefit, but often beyond social benefits. Hence I find it hard, whenever markets fail through the presence of either externalities, imperfect competition, or adverse incentives, that it ought nonetheless be the work of some powerful demiurge.

Yet, in so far as it puts into words an anxiety that so many feel, I can't say much else beyond that I don't believe it. The author certainly proceeds by analogy when he likens "capitalism" to an artificial intelligence whose goals themselves mean nothing to humanity at large; and mentions alienating "monuments" to capital, as if to liken it to a 20th century pharaoh, or to cruel tyrant. But since so many feel this is really the case, I have nothing else to say (other than that it's a very vivid picture). I disagree, for instance, that the majority of goods are worthless, as they ought to have some value in order to be sold. Even Marx reckoned this much, and thinking otherwise seems like relying too much in the stupidity of others (which should never be trivially admitted). That would be the case if capital were built beyond all possible utility (say, like a bridge between London and NY). And I don't think it is necessary to make analogies to speak of wealth and income distribution issues, which are real problems in themselves, and which the majority of people are already acquainted with. Rather, I think that such analogies make problems much larger than they ought to be, by giving some monstrous character. Would be it be easier to tackle inequality by conceiving it as a result of an incredibly power artificial intelligence? I don't think so (even if the system is rotten, we'd be waiting on a constructive proof of one that isn't).

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A game is more fun without the cheat-code.

You live life with significantly more "cheat codes" than the rest of the world, now what makes you think you aren't already living with "cheat codes" you aren't aware of? Since you could also program your reality to enjoy the benefits of the "cheat codes" without actually being aware of them, then there's a bit of cosmic irony to your statement.

But what's proposed isn't any cheat-code, it's The cheat-code. I remember playing one of the Dooms once with its god cheat.. for a few minutes.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#69
post #29

Capital is not what most people conceive of it to be. Capital is commonly (and correctly) viewed as a "store of wealth", or as "the crystallisation of labour-time" - but capital comes in different flavours, and when you deal with capital in the form of goods which provide an incremental benefit to the user, what you have is indeed capital, but when you deal with money... it's up to you whether it's capital or not. Of…

Some would disagree that the purpose of existence is to promote happiness. Robert Nozick offered this thought experiment to which I would not opt to maximize happiness: > Nozick asks us to imagine a machine that could give us whatever desirable or pleasurable experiences we could want. Psychologists have figured out a way to stimulate a person's brain to induce pleasurable experiences that the subject could not disti…

The internal experience of an individual is totally beyond the point (the stimulation of watching an engaging movie is literally real in your brain!); all the issues about generating happiness for the human species revolve around the sustainability of that happiness. Kindof can't handwave away the social implications of promoting happiness within society. Also the arguments of "we'd rather DOOOOOO something than just EXPERIENCE doing it" obviously either rely on some sort of dualist existence or just straight out say the experience machine isn't as good as advertised.

Re: Capitalism is a paperclip maximizer

#70
post #53
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implicit in the statement "giving people what they want" is a set of assumptions about what "want" means. Do I want life-saving medicine? Do I want a soul-sucking job that pays the bills? Do I want to be de-facto-required to participate in Facebook in order to socialize? I may voluntarily choose all of these things, and while that is unambiguously better than being forced to do them by violence, that's subtly distinc…

"Implicit in the statement "giving people what they want" is a set of assumptions about what "want" means." And while that's all very interesting and important in the abstract, it's worth double-checking that you don't get yourself lost in the weeds... which I think you did... and forget that the paperclip maximizer is scary precisely because it has no concept of wants in it. With capitalism, wants can be changed in…

I think the point here is that in no reasonable definition of the words we are using does capitalism optimize (or even attempt at) giving people what they want. The only way to claim that is to redefine "what people want" as "what capitalism gives them" tautologically, which is I think the point the poster you're responding to was getting at which I think you've completely missed.

And telling people they are thinking emotionally and not rationally is unbelievably condescending and unnecessarily insulting and has no place in a discussion forum like this. Please try to be respectful.

I think the point to take away is that capitalism is a machine which mindlessly maximizes SOMETHING, disregarding all other things, and that thing isn't necessarily good. I think you're very right to point out that the 'something' is actually dynamic in some sense, though that doesn't save capitalism from the argument here. Dynamic can be bad: I suspect it's dynamic based on the material desires of the particular tiny group of human beings who happen to currently posses a great deal of capital, which is not a particularly good thing.

Post reply on HN