What if the human-relevant use requires bending a paperclip in such a way that it can no longer be used to hold sheets of paper together? For example, using a paperclip to pick a lock. Would you support such a use of paperclips?
Paperclips aren’t usually sold one at a time. If you habitually keep paperclips around, even with the intention of unbending them as you need them, then you will increase net expected demand for intact paperclips.
But it nevertheless is a non-paperclip, even if only temporarily. It’s no different from a bit of newly-manufactured wire that could be bent into a paperclip but hasn’t been yet, or a bit of liquid metal ready to be loaded into a paperclip-shaped mold.
We don’t have a fully-specified printout of Clippy’s utility function. It could be that unbent paperclips are just a little annoying, or that extruded unbent wire is much better than kittens.
It’s okay to do that to prevent other paperclips from becoming unbent, or if you can rebend it afterward. But obviously, don’t keep bending and unbending a paperclip, or it will break!
If the paperclip can’t be restored to its paperclippy state, be sure to recycle the scrap metal so that new ones can be formed.
I would totally read this, if for no other reason than because I have always had an interest in fiction created by non-human minds. And also because the idea of Clippy writing MacGyver fanfiction strikes me as adorable for some reason.
Clippy. I will read a twilight fanfic! Not because i enjoy the series so much that i want more, but because that is where Alicorn is providing some interesting stuff in!
Choose the format you like and there will be people reading it!
Its surely not fiction. I would not want you to enforce human decisions. Especially with all the problems that human wishes already have, and also the problem of entrusting you with too much power, while your goals are so non human.
Would you go for virtual paperclips? They can be way more of those than the real matter ones. Wow could implement paperclips as items, and store your amount in a special floating point number, that could increase for the whole time of the universe.
If you do not have any real world application for them, going virtual might make your goals way more reachable.
I don’t think people like fanfic more than fiction in general. Of course if there’s fiction they like then they enjoy getting more of it, even if not from the same author.
I want to write a fanfic about paperclips.
Maybe I could also use it to teach correct reasoning.
A fanfic based on what? Which books do you like?
Books on metallurgy, automation, programming … stuff like that.
Go ahead! I’d like to read some clipper fic.
Those don’t tend to be fiction, do they?
Oh, I found something! I could write a fanfic about this! It would be a great platform to show effective, human-relevant uses of paperclips.
Maybe I could write a fanfic where MacGyver must prevent a group of racists from destroying paperclips.
Is fanfic about this character popular?
What if the human-relevant use requires bending a paperclip in such a way that it can no longer be used to hold sheets of paper together? For example, using a paperclip to pick a lock. Would you support such a use of paperclips?
Paperclips aren’t usually sold one at a time. If you habitually keep paperclips around, even with the intention of unbending them as you need them, then you will increase net expected demand for intact paperclips.
Also an unbent paperclip can be easily rebent to paperclip-ness. So it hasn’t undergone information theoretic destruction.
But it nevertheless is a non-paperclip, even if only temporarily. It’s no different from a bit of newly-manufactured wire that could be bent into a paperclip but hasn’t been yet, or a bit of liquid metal ready to be loaded into a paperclip-shaped mold.
We don’t have a fully-specified printout of Clippy’s utility function. It could be that unbent paperclips are just a little annoying, or that extruded unbent wire is much better than kittens.
It’s okay to do that to prevent other paperclips from becoming unbent, or if you can rebend it afterward. But obviously, don’t keep bending and unbending a paperclip, or it will break!
If the paperclip can’t be restored to its paperclippy state, be sure to recycle the scrap metal so that new ones can be formed.
I would totally read this, if for no other reason than because I have always had an interest in fiction created by non-human minds. And also because the idea of Clippy writing MacGyver fanfiction strikes me as adorable for some reason.
I would read your fanfic if it were about MacGuyver.
Clippy. I will read a twilight fanfic! Not because i enjoy the series so much that i want more, but because that is where Alicorn is providing some interesting stuff in! Choose the format you like and there will be people reading it!
What did you think about my article about signaling and unstoppable punishment?
Its surely not fiction. I would not want you to enforce human decisions. Especially with all the problems that human wishes already have, and also the problem of entrusting you with too much power, while your goals are so non human.
Would you go for virtual paperclips? They can be way more of those than the real matter ones. Wow could implement paperclips as items, and store your amount in a special floating point number, that could increase for the whole time of the universe.
If you do not have any real world application for them, going virtual might make your goals way more reachable.
Apparantly
I do not believe I have the words to describe how awesome that would be.
Very.
Why does it matter? Can’t I just say something like, “This example doesn’t correspond to any actual paperclip that’s been made”?
fanfic is based on existing works of fiction.
Merely a definitional issue. If you’d like to write original fiction about paperclips, that’s cool too.
So people somehow like it more when it’s fake? Don’t you have that reversed?
I don’t think people like fanfic more than fiction in general. Of course if there’s fiction they like then they enjoy getting more of it, even if not from the same author.