Thinking consequentially, in terms of expected value and utility functions, will make you tend to focus on the first-order consequences of your actions and lead to a blind-spot for things that are fuzzy and not easily quantifiable, e.g. having loyal friends or being considered a trustworthy person.
I think that especially in the realm of human relationships the value of virtues such as trust, honesty, loyalty, honor is tremendous—even if these virtues may often imply actions with first-order consequences that have ‘negative expected value’ (e.g. helping a friend clean the kitchen when you could be working on AI alignment).
This is why I try to embrace deontological frameworks and heuristics in day-to-day life and in such things as social relationships, friendships, co-living etc.: Even if the upside of that is hard to quantify, I am convinced that the value of the higher-order consequences of it far outweigh the ‘first-order inconvenience/downside’.
I strongly agree with this post.
Thinking consequentially, in terms of expected value and utility functions, will make you tend to focus on the first-order consequences of your actions and lead to a blind-spot for things that are fuzzy and not easily quantifiable, e.g. having loyal friends or being considered a trustworthy person.
I think that especially in the realm of human relationships the value of virtues such as trust, honesty, loyalty, honor is tremendous—even if these virtues may often imply actions with first-order consequences that have ‘negative expected value’ (e.g. helping a friend clean the kitchen when you could be working on AI alignment).
This is why I try to embrace deontological frameworks and heuristics in day-to-day life and in such things as social relationships, friendships, co-living etc.: Even if the upside of that is hard to quantify, I am convinced that the value of the higher-order consequences of it far outweigh the ‘first-order inconvenience/downside’.