I would say that one of the many benefits of power is having plenty of choices, especially when those choices involve different ways to get fitness-enhancing needs filled. Choices are great, because of the shifting cost-benefit ratios of various action plans an individual might come up with to get such a need taken care of. With choices we can choose the most effective and efficient way to fill the need given our current circumstances. One of the basic fears concerning self-improving general purpose artificial intelligence is that it may reduce our choices, rapidly, potentially to zero.
Thinking about it, one of the signs that super intelligence might be becoming misaligned with us is that if gives of fewer good choices. Thank you for the comment.
Given power comes from choices, it makes sense power would correlate with available choices. But I think its significant about which comes first.
It may seems difference without distinction, but not in my experience.
An example: lots of managers talk about empowerment in the workplace. But then remove control over choices from employees in the name of “consistency”, “guardrails”, “scalability”, etc. Those choices is where power comes from, and it’s therefore disempowering to elevate the choices higher and organizations usually suffer.
So I think we probably agree? I just think choice precedes power, not the other way around.
I also like Nassim Taleb’s idea of optionality, in which choice, even inferior choices, have value in that they give us options.
Yes, if AGI removes choices, that would strike me as bad.
That sounds like a very frustrating management style.
Thank you for the example and the opportunity to respond to your criticism. As you said in your DM, I think we are basically on the same page.
I think there is kind of a positive feedback loop in operation intimately relating power and choice. The opportunity to gain power is to some degree constrained by the number of choices available in the present. In that sense the number of choices available to an individual precedes changes in that person’s power.
No matter how much power a person has it any given time, they are always, often nonconsciously, scanning their socioeconomic horizons for opportunities to gain additional power, or moves available to them that can help them avoid losing power. If a person’s scanning functions does not identify viable choices of action plans to gain power, then they are stuck. But, the big brain we have evolved constantly is at work developing social navigation strategies that will potentially get us unstuck. We have been selected to notice new fitness enhancing opportunities as they arise within the dynamic social milieu we exist in, as well as to have cognitive capacities to generate new fitness-enhancing action plan choices. 🤠
I think power is the product of choice. Power can be reduced to “having choices”.
I would say that one of the many benefits of power is having plenty of choices, especially when those choices involve different ways to get fitness-enhancing needs filled. Choices are great, because of the shifting cost-benefit ratios of various action plans an individual might come up with to get such a need taken care of. With choices we can choose the most effective and efficient way to fill the need given our current circumstances. One of the basic fears concerning self-improving general purpose artificial intelligence is that it may reduce our choices, rapidly, potentially to zero.
Thinking about it, one of the signs that super intelligence might be becoming misaligned with us is that if gives of fewer good choices. Thank you for the comment.
Given power comes from choices, it makes sense power would correlate with available choices. But I think its significant about which comes first.
It may seems difference without distinction, but not in my experience.
An example: lots of managers talk about empowerment in the workplace. But then remove control over choices from employees in the name of “consistency”, “guardrails”, “scalability”, etc. Those choices is where power comes from, and it’s therefore disempowering to elevate the choices higher and organizations usually suffer.
So I think we probably agree? I just think choice precedes power, not the other way around.
I also like Nassim Taleb’s idea of optionality, in which choice, even inferior choices, have value in that they give us options.
Yes, if AGI removes choices, that would strike me as bad.
That sounds like a very frustrating management style.
Thank you for the example and the opportunity to respond to your criticism. As you said in your DM, I think we are basically on the same page.
I think there is kind of a positive feedback loop in operation intimately relating power and choice. The opportunity to gain power is to some degree constrained by the number of choices available in the present. In that sense the number of choices available to an individual precedes changes in that person’s power.
No matter how much power a person has it any given time, they are always, often nonconsciously, scanning their socioeconomic horizons for opportunities to gain additional power, or moves available to them that can help them avoid losing power. If a person’s scanning functions does not identify viable choices of action plans to gain power, then they are stuck. But, the big brain we have evolved constantly is at work developing social navigation strategies that will potentially get us unstuck. We have been selected to notice new fitness enhancing opportunities as they arise within the dynamic social milieu we exist in, as well as to have cognitive capacities to generate new fitness-enhancing action plan choices. 🤠