Guess I’ll take your word for it. Not sure I remember seeing that usage for “utility function” on LW, though.
ETA: It gets kind of confusing, because if I prefer that people are happy, their happiness becomes my utility, but in a way that doesn’t contradict utility functions as a description of preferences.
Not sure I remember seeing that usage for “utility function” on LW, though.
Many uses are ambiguous enough to encompass either definition. If you aren’t aware of the possible ambiguity then you’re unlikely to notice anything awry—at least up until the point where you run into someone who’s using a different default definition, and things start to get messy. (This has happened to me a couple of times.)
Guess I’ll take your word for it. Not sure I remember seeing that usage for “utility function” on LW, though.
ETA: It gets kind of confusing, because if I prefer that people are happy, their happiness becomes my utility, but in a way that doesn’t contradict utility functions as a description of preferences.
Many uses are ambiguous enough to encompass either definition. If you aren’t aware of the possible ambiguity then you’re unlikely to notice anything awry—at least up until the point where you run into someone who’s using a different default definition, and things start to get messy. (This has happened to me a couple of times.)