Utility monster isn’t a failure mode. It just messes with our intuitions because no one could imagine being a utility monster.
Edit: At the time I made this comment, the wikipedia article on utility monsters incorrectly stated that a utility monster meant an agent that gets increasing marginal utility with respect to resources. Now that I know that a utility monster means an agent that gets much more utility from resources than other agents do, my response is that you can multiply the utility monster’s utility function by a small coefficient, so that it no longer acts as a utility monster.
Utility monster isn’t a failure mode. It just messes with our intuitions because no one could imagine being a utility monster.
Edit: At the time I made this comment, the wikipedia article on utility monsters incorrectly stated that a utility monster meant an agent that gets increasing marginal utility with respect to resources. Now that I know that a utility monster means an agent that gets much more utility from resources than other agents do, my response is that you can multiply the utility monster’s utility function by a small coefficient, so that it no longer acts as a utility monster.