17 KiB
[BST] All-powerful wish-granting device of unknown origin and intentions
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Author: u/loonyphoenix *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2e94m7/bst_allpowerful_wishgranting_device_of_unknown/
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Score: 10
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Created: 2014-08-22T05:35:27
Post:
I'm not sure this is a good idea for a story, but this crowd is the best one I could think to ask, and it has been a slow week for the sub...
Suppose you get an all-powerful wish-granting device. For example, you see a notebook appear out of thin air, obviously by magic, and when you open it, you see only this instruction: "Any wish written on these pages will come true". What do you do? What is the best course of action? You don't know if the notebook works, but by the way it appeared you suspect that it might. For the sake of the argument, suppose it does. You don't know how it interprets wishes---does it read the intent behind it? Or take the most literal interpretation? Or the most malicious interpretation? I couldn't think of a single wish that I was 100% certain was worth a try. Do you wish first to be able to understand the consequences of your wishes? But that seems like a lot of information that your brain might burst from trying to process. Do you wish to be twice as smart, so that you could decide on a wish better? But that may also have negative consequences for your brain---heck, it might kill you after a second of horrified realization of your mistake. Is the destruction it may cause worth the good it may do if you risk using it? You don't know if anyone else ever received or will ever receive another such note---is it better to risk using the note yourself rather than risk someone else using a note first with disastrous results? Do you shelf the issue and try to research magic that you witnessed when the note appeared? Or is it best to try to destroy the note without using it, or lose it as thoroughly as possible so that no one finds it ever again?
I'm having trouble deciding what a rational person should do in this situation, and I somehow can think of little else this morning...
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+12] Time flies like an arrow (3 hours later)
For more information see here for the hidden complexity of wishes. The Open Source Wish project used to have a forum just for discussing the proper wording, but it seems that it's dead now.
I personally believe it's best to attempt to use the notebook for some carefully worded wish, but if the genie is a complete dick there's no one true "safe" wish that you can make. And if the genie is a complete dick that's going to fuck you over no matter what, I think it's probably not going to work from a story perspective. A literal genie is fine, but if you're going to be turned into a suitcase when you ask to be able to fly ... what's the point? It's not clever or interesting.
u/embrodski [+5] (11 hours later)
I was about to link to the same. :) To follow-up, I'd write down "I wish for my next wish to be that which I should wish for, given my values." Either the genie is safe or it isn't.
u/ArmokGoB [+0] (16 hours later)
Well, it could be the "not very powerful" kind. And that might still be enough to wipe out humanity by being wrong about what you should wish for.
u/embrodski [+2] (16 hours later)
I guess the only safe way to deal with a genie is kryptonite bullets.
u/loonyphoenix [+3] (4 hours later)
Wow, lesswrong.com has an article for everything.
u/Prankster42 [+5] (3 hours later)
Find a way to contain or destroy the notebook. The potential downsides are, as you have showcased yourself, way too large.
For use in fiction it might be possible to create a setting in which it makes sense for a character to risk using the book, but given living in our world it likely will never make sense.
u/eaglejarl [+5] (19 minutes later)
I haven't thought about this at all, just answering off the cuff.
One experiment you could try would be to indicate a small blade of grass and write "I wish for this blade of grass and only this blade of grass to turn pink." If it does, you know the wishes work.
If it does, then you could write "I would like this blade of grass, and only this blade of grass, to become something pretty for five seconds." If it transforms into something you find attractive, that's decently strong evidence that it responds to intent. It could be that the note is conscious and malicious and just messing with you, though -- setting up false expectations for a later whammy.
u/loonyphoenix [+1] (26 minutes later)
Well... My first thought---the blade of grass turns pink because it becomes infested by a pink-colored virus that kills you, and then everybody else. I would look for a safer first wish in case the book was malicious, but, as I said, I can't think of anything that I'm sure could not be interpreted with disastrous results in case of a smart malicious interpreter.
Edit: I'm not sure how likely a malicious interpreter is, and whether it is likely enough that you should take it into consideration when making the wishes.
u/Alphanos [+8] The Bright Powers (54 minutes later)
Any entity sufficiently powerful to grant wishes could cause whatever catastrophes it wanted if it was evil. Your role is irrelevant.
It makes sense to be very cautious of potentially ignorant or literalistic interpretations of ambiguities however.
u/loonyphoenix [+2] (an hour later)
I'm thinking more along the lines of unknown optimization priorities filling in the blanks when something is not specified explicitly. For example, perhaps the notebook wishes to use as little power as possible, with everything else being equal; and what is the best way to minimize power consumption than to kill every potential user (while granting a wish), thus negating the need to grant more wishes?
u/eaglejarl [+2] (4 hours later)
The question, though, is how much agency does the notebook have? If it's a conscious entity (or even just a sufficiently highly sophisticated but non-sapient expert system), then you're hosed. A normal human can't safely wish from a malicious conscious entity.
On the other hand, if the book lacks significant agency and simply follows the (easiest / lowest power cost) channel, then you've got a shot. You just need to specify things carefully. It becomes less about wishing and more about programming.
u/loonyphoenix [+1] (4 hours later)
Yes, the whole problem is that you don't know which kind of wish-granting device you have, and there is no way to find out besides making wishes. Which is why I'm wondering if it's a smart thing to experiment or not.
u/clawclawbite [+3] (an hour later)
"I wish I had a manual for using this wishing device written by a hypothetical me who had made all the wishes using this that he needed to figure out this device but would not impair him from writing a manual, or make it so the manual he wrote is not one I would find useful"
May spend a day or so refining that, but it is at least the seed.
u/loonyphoenix [+1] (an hour later)
Hmm... The manual appears inside you, superimposed over your flesh, causing the atoms to fuse with your own, causing nuclear fusion and blowing you up in a nuclear explosion.
I think you need to define the manner in which it appears better, but this does seem to be the direction to think in.
u/renegadeduck [+7] picky but enthusiastic (2 hours later)
If the wish granter is malicious then there are no safe wishes. It may not even be safe to ignore the book — after all, you're spoiling their fun.
It's hard to reason about magic, but it seems unlikely that the wish granter is going to immediately kill you. What kind of goal does that serve?
Even if it amuses them, might it not be more amusing to toy with you for a bit, and then only bring in malicious elements once you're sure the wish granter isn't malicious?
u/clawclawbite [+1] (an hour later)
If such a lethal manual showed up the text would wind up being "No clue, can't figure anything out without making at least one wish."
u/loonyphoenix [+1] (2 hours later)
Perhaps. The contents wouldn't matter to you if you were dead, though.
u/holomanga [+3] (6 hours later)
First Wish: "I wish that all wishes made by me and written in this book, including this one, will be interpreted according to their intent and not specific wording"
u/Jinoc [+5] (6 hours later)
The notebook acquiesces, and next time you make a wish it makes the random image that went through your mind come true. Or your hidden, possibly self-destructive, fantasies.
u/Anakiri [+3] (9 hours later)
I don't like wish-granting notebooks. How does it distinguish between these wishes?
"I wish I had a manual for safely using this, with these caveats..."
"I wish I had a manual for safely using this" black hole
"I wish I had a manual" random IKEA instruction book
"I wish I had a man" new person suddenly exists
And what happens to the later valid wishes if I keep writing? Will I be unmaking the person I made, or will junk keep piling up every time I complete a noun or verb phrase? Or does it wait until I finish a sentence? I hope it can read my handwriting well enough to distinguish my commas from my periods. Does it care about grammar, or will it try to grant "I wish I had a manual for safe", leading to a whole lot more headaches?
I don't think I would write anything in it. Notebooks are even more dangerous than genies.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (5 days later)
Ha. That would be an amusing short story: a wishgranting notebook that translated wishes literally as written, where the protagonists try to figure out what rules it goes by and how best to circumvent them.
u/Rouninscholar [+1] (7 days later)
Little bit late "I wish I had" might make you past tense.
u/Anakiri [+1] (7 days later)
Only if it accepts incomplete sentences, improper grammar, broad interpretations that barely follow from the actual words used, and logically incoherent end states. That falls under the category of "a whole lot more headaches". If you're going that far, then as soon as you write "I" it might destroy the rest of the universe, leaving only you.
u/Nepene [+3] (18 hours later)
Given the existence of wish granting notebooks you shouldn't assume that you are the only person who has ever been granted one. Others likely have similar magics and either have avoided disaster or are about to cause disaster.
So I'd do three wishes.
I wish that this wishbook's wish making powers would adhere to my mental intent and desires.
I wish that all wish granting entities and objects other than this wish book would be unable to grant wishes.
I wish that all people would become immortal and have fast regeneration and that their intellect would gradually increase over years to a high level.
I wish that knowledge of advanced AI building, nuclear fusion power stations, and interstellar travel would become common place worldwide.
I wish that all entities and people would see me in a favorable and positive fashion and be against harming me in any serious way or stealing this notebook.
u/ArmokGoB [+2] (16 hours later)
"In exactly a 20 meter radius sphere around this book, for exactly 10 minutes, accelerate the subjective flow of time by a factor of exactly 1000."
u/kuilin [+1] (a day later)
I would imagine strange things to be happening at the border of such a sphere... And how would the 10 minutes be defined? In terms of the time that the flow of time is accelerating in?
u/ArmokGoB [+1] (a day later)
Thatss why I'm using 1000x and 10 minutes, not 1000 000x and 1 second/several hours.
u/Eryemil [+0] (18 hours later)
You know the notebook is going to be indestructible.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+3] Utopian Smut Peddler (11 hours later)
...you see a notebook appear out of thin air, obviously by magic, and when you open it, you see only this instruction: "Any wish written on these pages will come true". What do you do? What is the best course of action?
I carefully pick up the notebook, take it home, put it in a locked desk drawer, and then immediately seek professional help.
Okay, fine.
You don't know if the notebook works, but by the way it appeared you suspect that it might. For the sake of the argument, suppose it does.
No, I don't. I won't. That doesn't logically follow at all from the way it appeared. This is like asking, "If you were less rational and made wild assumptions..."
Isn't a MUCH better question: "What would convince you that you had a notebook that safely granted any wish, if you were too smart to risk actually using it given known issues with genies?"
That's basically the strong AI safety question, which is why people on /r/rational and lesswrong even talk about it in the first place. What kind of tasks can you safely order your powerful AI to perform that don't endanger the local lightcone through bad wording and buggy programming?
Do you wish first to be able to understand the consequences of your wishes? But that seems like a lot of information that your brain might burst from trying to process.
That isn't how brains work.
Do you wish to be twice as smart, so that you could decide on a wish better? But that may also have negative consequences for your brain---heck, it might kill you after a second of horrified realization of your mistake.
Ehh...why not test it on a rat first, if that is really something you're worried about? Why take any wish and apply directly to the forehead as a first step? Time for exhaustive animal testing. That's why grad students were invented, so maybe wish for those first.
Is the destruction it may cause worth the good it may do if you risk using it? You don't know if anyone else ever received or will ever receive another such note---is it better to risk using the note yourself rather than risk someone else using a note first with disastrous results?
If you have somehow randomly acquired a wishing notebook, there is no way you are a unique snowflake and the only person who's ever had this problem. Even if that were somehow true, you certainly won't be the last. Just like all dangerous discoveries in science and technology, not understanding and mastering it isn't an option.
Positing a safe, functional wishing device, wish-nuking all other wish devices is a first priority, clearly. In fact, wishing them into evil, effect-limiting, anti-user genie devices might be a good move, if you can't stop them from existing and granting wishing at all for some reason.
u/justanothercook [+1] (5 hours later)
I wish for a comprehensive understanding of how this this notebook works and the power behind it that would serve to guide any future use of the notebook, without anybody automatically knowing that I have this understanding, and that this new knowledge would not cause me or anything else harm, force any other action from me or others, and would not inherently alter my current morality.
u/kuilin [+1] (a day later)
Nothing happens.
u/MadScientist14159 [+1] WIP: Sodium Hypochlorite (Rational Bleach) Eventually. Maybe. (6 hours later)
I think since every response you have given is a malicious genie answer that you need to have some kind of automatic "reset the world back to before I wrote my wish if the result is a catastrophe" mechanism if you want the story to be more than two paragraphs long and have any hope of a happy ending.
u/loonyphoenix [+1] (7 hours later)
If I write a story based on this, I don't think I'll reveal the kind of wish-granting device it turns out to be, if it is ever known. The story will end with the main character making the wish, or deciding against it. What happens next will be left to the reader's imagination. It's not going to be novel-length or anything, just a short story about wishes.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Destroy it and get on with my day instead of dealing with a piece of malicious godvomit.
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
Well, first, even if it works: Don't wish for power. Wish for information. Specifically, information about the notebook itself.
It must have come from somewhere. Is its former owner going to ask for it back? How was it created? Are there other sources of wishes in the world? And perhaps most importantly - are you going to piss off any supernatural entities with your blatant reality-bending?
u/Sceptically [+1] (3 days later)
"I wish for the effects of an optimal wish made by me."
u/a_greenrain [+1] (8 days later)
Could be interpreted as "optimal" for the malicious entity, and therefore would probably end up, in turn, being the least optimal wish from your point of view.