Just because something isn’t explicitly being maximised that doesn’t mean it is not being produced in large quantities.
But most things that aren’t being maximised won’t be produced as by-products of other stuff. Of all the molecules possible in nature, only a few are being mass-produced by the modern world.
I used the example of autonomy for highly relevant philosophical reasons; ie because it would allow me to get in the line about wailing and the AI forbidding it :-)
We don’t observe “most things” in the first place. We see a miniscule subset of all things—a subset which is either the target or result of a maximisation process.
IMO, most things that look as though as though they are being maximised are, in fact, the products of instrumental maximisation—and so are not something that we need to include in the preferences of a machine intelligence—because we don’t really care about them in the first place. The products of instrumental maximisation often don’t look much like “by-products”. They often look more as though they are intrinsic preferences. However, they are not.
But most things that aren’t being maximised won’t be produced as by-products of other stuff. Of all the molecules possible in nature, only a few are being mass-produced by the modern world.
I used the example of autonomy for highly relevant philosophical reasons; ie because it would allow me to get in the line about wailing and the AI forbidding it :-)
We don’t observe “most things” in the first place. We see a miniscule subset of all things—a subset which is either the target or result of a maximisation process.
IMO, most things that look as though as though they are being maximised are, in fact, the products of instrumental maximisation—and so are not something that we need to include in the preferences of a machine intelligence—because we don’t really care about them in the first place. The products of instrumental maximisation often don’t look much like “by-products”. They often look more as though they are intrinsic preferences. However, they are not.