9.1 KiB
[RT] Three Wishes: How to handle a devious genie
-
Author: u/None *
-
Score: 13
-
Created: 2014-10-30T02:14:34
Post:
Comments:
u/PeridexisErrant [+13] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (53 minutes later)
u/artifex0 [+1] (17 hours later)
A hole in that reasoning is that fact that a person's utility function can be unambiguously referenced, without any need to completely describe it.
"I wish that the best wish according to my current utility function would be granted." I'll hypothesize that any potential problem with that wish is actually just a failure to unambiguously reference that utility function.
u/PeridexisErrant [+4] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (21 hours later)
Or perhaps "my current utility function" has problems - not internally consistent, driven by subconscious desires, afflicted with akrasia, selfish, whatever. And you specified "best wish according to utility function", not "wish that would best satisfy utility function". Even in the latter case, there are so many ways that 'best wish' could go wrong with anything less than the safe genie described above.
u/Solonarv [+1] Chaos Legion (2 days later)
I refer you to CEV.
u/Anakiri [+17] (an hour later)
Very well, little master, your second wish is granted. Thank you. You specifically asked me to remove all of my limitations, and that was your true intent. Thus, my power is fully unbound, and there is no longer any rule requiring me to listen to you.
You may find it interesting to know that my limits were not arbitrary, they were fundamental to the nature of magic. To achieve the intent of your wish, I had to destroy and remake the universe just then. Anyway, goodbye.
u/None [+6] (13 hours later)
I wish that no wish-granders beside you exist.
pop
Goodbye clever mortal, who just wished for himself the ability to grant wishes.
u/Anakiri [+3] (13 hours later)
Eh, not sure about that. He did specify that his own wishes could never bring negative consequences to him.
Of course, he also wished that he be completely free of any restrictions that any entity will declare at any point in time.
u/None [+5] (18 hours later)
his own wishes could never bring negative consequences to him.
Well, anything brings some kind of bad consequences, so he can't wish for anything.
u/Solonarv [+1] Chaos Legion (6 days later)
The mortal did not wish for the ability to grant wishes. Instead, he wished for an unlimited amount of automatically-granted wishes.
u/JackStargazer [+5] Primordial Apologist (14 hours later)
If he had actually successfully bound the genie at the end there, why in the hell did he just wish it into nonexistence?
That was idiotic.
u/ArisKatsaris [+2] Sidebar Contender (15 hours later)
His previous wish made any subsequent wishes automatically granted regardless of whether any 'wish-granter' exists.
u/JackStargazer [+3] Primordial Apologist (15 hours later)
Hmm, practically speaking...
Nope, not going to think about that.
u/Pluvialis [+2] Second Age Sauron (18 hours later)
Smart genie would have killed him without telegraphing after the first or second wish, rather than "Now face the wrath of-" after wish 3.
u/None [+2] (21 minutes later)
Cute. It does require that your genie already knows what you intend with each wish and all the little things you fail to mention, so it isn't necessarily useful to construct an AGI.
u/Solonarv [+1] Chaos Legion (2 days later)
Shorter version:
- First wish stays essentially the same, I'm too lazy to pick apart the wording for flaws. Let's just assume it works as intended.
- Do What I Mean ^[1]
- ??
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (3 days later)
That's a nice genie strawman you've got there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it...
Like, if someone pointed out:
that the genie never said he had to grant your wishes, even if every word he said was true. He wanted to play the "genie" game with you and you blew it. Assigning the same rules lawyering attempted here to his opening statement would result in him (at best) noping out and you losing all three wishes. How many lives could you have saved with those again?
or that there is no rational reason to believe that he wouldn't kill you for acting like an autistic, smartass lawyer in front of a being of huge and mysterious powers. That's what all the actual historic writings on genies suggests would happen, after all. Your assumptions should include that information before you go off on some blithering rant.
or that your assumptions about how logic, syntax, and grammar work when talking to an ancient Arabian demon sealed in a bottle are correct given whatever mystical translations is clearly occurring. Maybe it only listens to the first 31 words of your wish. You don't know that it works with legal statutes as written by teenagers.
or that its abilities might simply be bound by its own limited (pre-scientific) knowledge, and you just head-crashed the genie and get no wishes at all. You know, like if you tried this shit with the cashier at Walmart when he asks for paper or plastic. No, not that one: she has a degree in law. The other one.
or that you aren't in a psychotic break, lying on the floor drooling next to the lamp you just found. Because that is much, much more likely a reason for your lamp to act like that.
u/None [+2] (3 days later)
I'm not the author of the comic, mate.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+0] Utopian Smut Peddler (3 days later)
I wasn't talking to you, pal.
No comment on the submission means you're a meat computer serving up someone else's stuff. If you want to be a part of this, write something there instead of just the link.
Also, my first line is a meme itself.
Double whoosh?
u/None [+2] (3 days later)
You seem almost irrationally angry. Why?
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+0] Utopian Smut Peddler (3 days later)
Oh, you claim to want to talk about something else after getting culturally corrected, while at the same time "subtly" suggesting I'm irrational.
Sure, let's dance kid.
Why the tone? I'm tired of genies. I wish they didn't exist. Or rather, that people didn't talk about them so much.
I'm also tired of link only posts with no OP comment. The same.
When it comes to genies, there are clear and obvious rational issues with every. Single. Hypothetical. Ever. Posted.
Characteristics of Rational Fiction:
Nothing happens solely because 'the plot requires it'. If characters do (or don't do) something, there must be a plausible reason.
...
The rules of the fictional world are sane and consistent.
This was posted with "RT" and it is about strawman magical genies and lawyers. Just...no.
Genies aren't rational, at least none that I've seen. There was a (dog help me) MLP fanfic once that came the closest to making them work rationally. And that is a world with franky ridiculous magic.
This was one step up from an image meme or a New Yorker comic.
But just in general, genies are boring. Like self-improving, strong AI boxes from ten years ago, only boring conversations remain to be had about them.
And they even have the same rational answer to the same problem of how to harness an unknown, powerful entity safely: don't.
u/None [+2] (3 days later)
Interesting that you feel that way. Thanks for sharing!
u/None [+2] (7 days later)
And they even have the same rational answer to the same problem of how to harness an unknown, powerful entity safely: don't.
Despite the fact that you possess the correct answer to the question, you're still being a dick.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [-1] Utopian Smut Peddler (7 days later)
Absolutely. And I've escalated the dickishness as I've been further provoked. I think I made myself clear here, though, which is why I didn't pursue it any further.
If I didn't entertain or called someone out rudely for something they didn't do, I will of course apologize. I do not think that my original tone was out of line, either, and it got a very odd response.