Can the agent just mute their capabilities when they do this computation? There are very slick ways to speed up computation and likewise slick ways to slow down computation. The agent could say, mess up cache coherency in its hardware, store data types differently, ignore the outputs of some of its compute, or maybe run faster than the other agent expects by devising a faster algorithm, using hardware level optimizations that use strange physics the other agent hasn’t thought of, etc.
Secondly, how would an agent convince another to run expensive code that takes up their entire compute? If you are some nation in medieval Europe, and another adjacent nation demanded every able bodied person to enter a triathlon to measure their net strength, would any sane leader agree to that?
Yup, all that would certainly make it more complicated. In a regime where this kind of tightly-controlled delegation were really important, we might also demand our counterparties standardize their hardware so they can’t play tricks like this.
I was picturing a more power-asymmetric situation, more like a feudal lord giving his vassals lots of busywork so they don’t have time to plot anything.
Can the agent just mute their capabilities when they do this computation? There are very slick ways to speed up computation and likewise slick ways to slow down computation. The agent could say, mess up cache coherency in its hardware, store data types differently, ignore the outputs of some of its compute, or maybe run faster than the other agent expects by devising a faster algorithm, using hardware level optimizations that use strange physics the other agent hasn’t thought of, etc.
Secondly, how would an agent convince another to run expensive code that takes up their entire compute? If you are some nation in medieval Europe, and another adjacent nation demanded every able bodied person to enter a triathlon to measure their net strength, would any sane leader agree to that?
Yup, all that would certainly make it more complicated. In a regime where this kind of tightly-controlled delegation were really important, we might also demand our counterparties standardize their hardware so they can’t play tricks like this.
I was picturing a more power-asymmetric situation, more like a feudal lord giving his vassals lots of busywork so they don’t have time to plot anything.