80 KiB
[MK][Q] You can bring only one fictional character to reality. Who is the 'right' choice?
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Author: u/puesyomero The Culture*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3uvugg/mkq_you_can_bring_only_one_fictional_character_to/
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Score: 18
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Created: 2015-11-30T18:33:38
Post:
He/She/It is under no compulsion to obey or even like you. Must be from a fictional work created before you knew you could do it. only you can use this power/device, so no creating your ideal and then have someone else do it. (°3°) good luck!
Comments:
u/ArgentStonecutter [+35] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (33 minutes later)
Sit down and re-read the Culture series. All of it.
Pick the Culture Ship most likely to be well-intentioned towards our little blue dot. Perhaps Arbitrary (oh, hey, I know you think you left here a few decades ago, well you're back and the entire hominid population of this galaxy is this planet ... wanna lend a hand?), or maybe Sense Amidst Madness, Wit Amidst Folley?
Seriously, if you're going to find a friendly ASI in literature, I can't think of a better place.
u/Geminii27 [+13] (2 hours later)
Not to mention that a Culture ship can literally digitize you and spit you back out in a body of your choice without you noticing the transitions. If you could find a Mind which would cheerfully upgrade anyone who asked to at least a Culture-human body, that'd be a great start. One who was happy to circle the globe and do it for any injured/sick/aged person would be fantastic.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+11] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (6 hours later)
Just not "Sleeper Service" or "Gray Area" or "Killing Time" or "Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints". There are some scary Culture ships.
u/None [+2] (8 hours later)
Why are those guys so scary?
u/ArgentStonecutter [+11] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (19 hours later)
Sleeper Service is probably the least scary of the lot. It just has this thing about staging battle scenes using actual Culture citizens in stasis.
Gray Area likes digging around in non-culture hominid minds looking for war criminals to punish.
Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints has been known to torture people for amusement, relying on the fact that it can wipe memories and repair damage perfectly so it has plausible deniability.
Killing Time started an interstellar war for the purpose of forcing the Culture to conquer a civilization it didn't approve of.
u/boomfarmer [+3] Trying to be helpful (2 days later)
Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints has been known to torture people for amusement, relying on the fact that it can wipe memories and repair damage perfectly so it has plausible deniability.
Not quite as bad as that, but stranger. Falling... used a consenting human as its avatar. And while it was that avatar, the avatar got into all sorts of kinky predicaments. It kept the host's personality running while doing all these things. And then when Falling... was done with the body, Falling... wiped the host's memories and left him standing on the docks, missing a month of memories and having gained a number of interesting scars, tattoos, illnesses and bandages.
He looked cadaverous, hollow-cheeked. Dark eyes with no whites, two ridges instead of eyebrows, a flat nose and mid-dark skin, scarred in places. He was only medium tall but his height was emphasised by his thinness. If his physiology was the same as a Sichultian’s then the slight bagginess about his face implied the weight loss had been recent and rapid. His clothes were dark, perhaps black: skinny trews and a tight-fitting shirt or jacket, partially closed at the neck by a thumb-sized, blood-red glittering jewel on a loosened choker.
That's Surface Detail's protagonist's first impression of Demeisen.
Lededje saw him look at her right hand and so put it out to him. His hand clasped her hand, fingers with too many joints closing around like a bony cage. His touch felt very warm, almost feverish, though perfectly dry, like paper. She saw him wince and noticed that two of his fingers were crudely splinted together with a small piece of wood or plastic and what looked like a piece of knotted rag. Somehow the wince didn’t travel all the way to his face, which regarded her without obvious expression.
There was a small gold tube in front of him which Lededje had assumed was the mouthpiece of an under-table chill or water pipe – there were several other mouthpieces lying or cradled on the table – but which proved to be a stick with a glowing end, un -attached to anything else. Demeisen put it to his lips and sucked hard. The golden tube crackled, shortened and left a fiery glowing tip beneath a lofting of silky grey smoke.
Demeisen saw her looking and offered the stick to her. “A drug. From Sudalle. Called narthaque. The effect is similar to winnow, though harsher, less pleasant. The hangover can be severe.”
“‘Winnow’?” Lededje asked. She got the impression she’d been expected to know what this was.
...
He smiled more broadly and ground the yellow-red glowing tip of the stick into the open palm of his other hand. There was a distinct sizzling noise. Again, his body seemed to flinch, though his face remained serene.
“What, this?” he said, looking down at the ash-dark burn on his skin as Lededje stared at it, openly aghast. “Don’t worry; I don’t feel a thing.” He laughed. “The idiot inside here does though.” He tapped the side of his head, smiled again. “Poor fool won some sort of competition to replace a ship’s avatar for a hundred days or a year or something similar. No control over either body or ship whatsoever, obviously, but the full experience in other respects – sensations, for example. I’m told he practically came in his pants when he learned an up-to-date warship had volunteered to accept his offer of body host.” The smile became broader, more of a grin. “Obviously not the most zealous student of ship psychology, then. So,” Demeisen said, holding up his hand with the splinted finger and studying it, “I torment the poor fool.” He put his other hand to the one with the splinted fingers, waggled them. His body shuddered as he did so. Lededje found herself wincing with vicarious pain. “See? Powerless to stop me,” Demeisen said cheerily. “He suffers his pain and learns his lesson while I… well, I gain some small amusement.”
He looked at Jolicci and Lededje. “Jolicci,” he said with obviously feigned concern, “you look offended.” He nodded, creased his eyes. “It’s a good look, trust me. Sour opprobrium: suits you.”
Jolicci said nothing.
Wheloube and Emmis resumed their seats. Standing there, Demeisen put out both hands and stroked the hair of one and the shaved head of the other, then cradled the finely chiselled chin of the one with the shaved head using his unsplinted hand. “And fascinatingly, the fellow” – he used his splinted fingers to tap the side of his head again, hard – “is quite defiantly heterosexual, with a fear of bodily violation that borders on outright homophobia.” He looked round the table of young men, winking at one of them, then gazed radiantly at Jolicci and Lededje.
For reference, Jolicci is the avatar of a General Contact Mind, which falls somewhere between First Contact and Diplomacy As Usual
Jolicci shrugged. “The Abominator class of General Offensive Unit, to which our friend belongs, is not known for its mildness or sociability. Probably specced when the Culture was going through one of its periods of feeling that nobody was taking it seriously because it was somehow too nice. Even amongst those, though, that particular ship is known as something of an outlier. Most SC ships conceal their claws and keep the psychopathy switched to Full Off except when it’s judged to be absolutely necessary.”
Later, Falling... leaves the body. Attending are Lededje, Jolicci, and Sensia. Sensia is the General Systems Vehicle hosting Jolicci, Jolicci's ship, and Lededge, but not Falling..., whose ship body left on a different course.
“I did leave earlier, my gracious hostess. I am currently some eighty years or so distant on an acutely divergent course, and travelling only slightly more rapidly than your good self, though still just about within real-time control range, at least for something as intrinsically slow-reacting as a human host. All of which I would hope you’re well aware of.”
“You’re abandoning your puppet here then?” Jolicci said.
“I am,” Demeisen agreed. “I thought now would be as appropriate an occasion as any other to return the fucker to the wild.”
“I have heard some disturbing reports regarding your treatment of this human you’re using, ship,” Sensia said. Lededje looked at the GSV’s avatar. For a small, frail-looking lady with frizzy blonde hair she seemed suddenly invested with a steeliness Lededje found herself glad was not directed at her.
Demeisen turned to Sensia. “All above board, dear thing. I have the relevant releases signed by his own fair hand. In blood, admittedly, but signed. What was I to use – engine oil?” He looked puzzled and turned to Jolicci. “Do we even have engine oil? I don’t think we do, do we?”
“Enough,” Jolicci said.
“Say goodbye and release your hold now before I do it for you,” Sensia said levelly.
“That would be impolite,” Demeisen said, pretending shock.
“I’ll suffer the injury to my reputation,” the GSV’s avatar said coolly.
The cadaverous humanoid rolled his eyes before turning to Lededje and smiling broadly. “My every best wish for your journey, Ms. Y’breq,” he said. “I hope I did not alarm you unduly with my little display last night. I get into character sometimes, find it hard to know when I’m causing distress. My apologies, if any are required. If not, then please accept them in any event, on account, to be banked against any future transgressions. So. Perhaps we shall meet again. Until then, farewell.”
He bowed deeply. When he came upright he looked quite changed; his face was set differently and his body language had altered subtly too. He blinked, looked around, then stared blankly at Lededje and then at the others. “Is that it?” he said. He stared at the ship in front of him. “Where is this? Is that the ship there?”
“Demeisen?” Jolicci said, moving closer to the man, who was looking down at himself and feeling his neck under his chin.
“I’ve lost weight…” he muttered. Then he looked at Jolicci. “What?” He looked at Sensia and Lededje. “Has it happened yet? Have I been the avatar?”
Sensia smiled reassuringly and took him by the arm. “Yes, sir, I believe you have.” She began to lead him towards the traveltube and made a begging-your-leave gesture to Jolicci and Lededje before turning away.
“But I can’t remember anything…”
“Really? Oh dear. However, that may be a blessing.”
“But I wanted memories! Something to remember!”
“Well…” Lededje heard Sensia say, before the doors of the traveltube capsule closed.
Until Falling... encounters Lededje again:
“Why are you here, if only apparently?”
“To make you an offer.”
“What? To be your next abused avatar?”
He grimaced again. “Oh, that was all just to upset Jolicci. You saw the guy I was… inhabiting; I released him in front of you. He was fine. I’d even fixed his fingers and everything. Didn’t you notice, this morning?”
She hadn’t.
“And anyway he did agree to everything. Not that I really abused him in the first place. Did he say anything? When I released him; did he? I didn’t bother to send any surveillance back-up and I haven’t asked the SAMWAF, so I honestly don’t know what happened after I pulled out. Did he? Make any allegations?”
“He couldn’t remember anything at all. He wasn’t even sure he’d been an avatar; he thought maybe it was about to happen.” Demeisen waved his arms. “Well, there you are!”
“There you are what? That proves nothing.”
“Yes it does; if I’d really been sneaky I’d have left the dumb fuck with a batch of implanted false memories full of whatever Contact-wank fantasies he’d been imagining before he took the gig in the first place.” He waved one hand in a blur of too-long fingers. “Anyway, we’re getting off the point here. You need to hear my offer.”
What Falling Outside The Normal Moral Contraints' offer was to Lededje, you will have to find out by reading the book yourself.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 days later)
Not quite as bad as that, but stranger. Falling... used a consenting human as its avatar. And while it was that avatar, the avatar got into all sorts of kinky predicaments. It kept the host's personality running while doing all these things. And then when Falling... was done with the body, Falling... wiped the host's memories and left him standing on the docks, missing a month of memories and having gained a number of interesting scars, tattoos, illnesses and bandages.
Actually, he got healed too. And those "kinky predicaments" included actual physical torture, like breaking his fingers. It was still torture even if the memory was wiped afterwards.
u/MugaSofer [+3] (3 days later)
Also worth noting that rape is a form of torture, and he mentioned that the poor sod had "a fear of bodily violation that borders on outright homophobia" - which may be considered a personality flaw by the Culture, but doesn't excuse raping the guy.
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (9 hours later)
Well, the names are fairly indicative... ^^;
u/None [+14] (10 hours later)
You torture one retired Nazi who engaged in human experimentation and they never let you live it down.
u/None [+3] (3 hours later)
Literally the first thing that occurred to me as well.
That re-read sounds like a good idea, though.
u/PeridexisErrant [+7] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (12 hours later)
Yeah, any other choice would have to have a pretty convincing explanation to choose over a Culture Mind.
Specifically, I'd choose the System-class GSV Empiricist, from The Hydrogen Sonata. Noted for it's exceptional size even for a GSV, and a complement of seven(!) Minds rather than the normal three. Seems happy to focus on civilian pursuits. Here's a list of others.
u/boomfarmer [+4] Trying to be helpful (2 days later)
These are always the best names for boats. When I was a pirate captain in a play, my ship was the Unreliable Witness.
There's the Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath and Very Little Gravitas Indeed, the Unacceptable Behaviour and the Rapid Offensive Unit Shoot Them Later, the Gangster-class ROU Heavy Messing, the Offensive Unit All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff and the GSV Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall. Plus the Pure Big Mad Boat Man and Transient Atmospheric Phenomenon, the But Who's Counting? and the Me, I'm Counting, and the non-Culture ship Strategic Outreach Element CH2OH.(CHOH)4.CHO
u/PeridexisErrant [+7] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (2 days later)
I may have named my canoe, but the paint washed off in sun and salt water. Most recently, it's the LCU Can't Escape this Gravitas Well II
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (5 days later)
Why. . . thank you.
u/None [+12] (7 hours later)
The question is what powers they get. Culture Minds are post-scarcity beings because their universe has an infinite power source. That power source may or may not transfer. If it doesn't...there will be problems.
If hyperspace doesn't work...there goes most of their processing power.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+7] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (19 hours later)
The same objections really apply to any SFnal characters with any significant capabilities, no?
u/None [+3] (19 hours later)
Yes. But some have internal sources of power. And it's harder to tell where the Culture powers (as an individual) end and their universe powers begin.
For example, drop some sort of super-soldier on Earth and it's presumed that he cannot make new superweapons, only keep what he has. If the superweapon depends on or works on things not found here then they're shit out of luck? But what about a magician? What about a magician that depends on a very clearly bound source of magic (it clearly works in one area or on one person)
With the Culture is the Grid like the superweapon or like magic?
u/ArgentStonecutter [+9] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (20 hours later)
If you're going to exclude things like hyperspace and the grid... that is, you're limiting them to known physics... then that eliminates all magical abilities, all soft-SF abilities, and even a lot of diamond-hard SF (like, we don't know that there are algorithms that would allow something like Neko-AI to function).
u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+2] (a day later)
What is Neko-AI and where is it from?
u/ArgentStonecutter [+8] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
It's a weakly godlike intelligence from Accelerando.
u/alexanderwales [+19] Time flies like an arrow (33 minutes later)
My primary criteria are probably:
- Extremely powerful
- Aligned with my values
To that end, I would probably select some sufficiently advanced AI that's known to be good. A Culture Mind is probably my best bet, since the entire Culture is essentially contained within one, which means that I (and everyone else) would rapidly gain access to all that nifty culture tech.
Assuming that magic still works if I bring in a fantasy character ... I'd probably go looking at a registry of gods, but I imagine that it would be difficult to find one that actually shares my values.
You said that he/she/it is under no compulsion to obey me, but does that mean no additional compulsion? Because if they still have all their regular restrictions, I think I might take Genie from Aladdin, who would be compelled to grant me three wishes (probably enough to get to godhood).
u/literal-hitler [+8] (10 hours later)
I think I might take Genie from Aladdin, who would be compelled to grant me three wishes (probably enough to get to godhood).
A wish that will allow you to craft a near optimal second wish. Depending on the type of genie that might be knowledge of the rules, an intelligence boost, or something else.
Wish for near optimal wish granting you as close to omnipotence as is allowed.
Free the genie or something, you can now probably do anything you can wish for yourself.
u/Sinity [+3] (18 hours later)
Couldn't it be done easier?
- "Genie, change the world state so it's perfectly aligned with my utility function" -> best possible wish. Does everything that you want.
u/eaglejarl [+11] (20 hours later)
The first problem there is that you are imposing your values on everyone else in existence, which is morally reprehensible.
The second problem is if your value function isn't quite what you think it is. There are lots of things that we want to want, and it's easy to tell ourselves that we actually want them. Having something show you your true value function might be decidedly unpleasant.
u/Sinity [+7] (21 hours later)
Everyone wants to fulfill their own values. That's what values mean. And every action takes effect on other people.
u/eaglejarl [+8] (21 hours later)
You're missing my point. Taking actions like "talk to people to convince them of my beliefs" is perfectly reasonable and honorable. "Use magic to transform everyone in the universe's mind-state so that it matches my values" is not. That's exactly what you're asking for here -- you want everything to align to your values, which means everyone must align to your values. You are killing every other person in existence and replacing them with someone that looks like them but thinks like you.
Unless "respect for the lives and rights of others" is not part of your value system, this wish literally cannot be fulfilled.
u/Vebeltast [+6] You should have expected the bayesian inquisition! (a day later)
Well, yes. My value function prefers universes that seem to contain other people with value functions that are being filled. By contrast, a universe with history where everybody's mental state was invasively overwritten by my own would not quite satisfy my own values. Your value function almost certainly has similar properties, judging by how violently you reacted to the idea. Of course, for the sake of making this post less than 10 kilowords I've had to use terms like like "containing other people" and "history" and those are notoriously flimsy ideas around here, but I think that the post should work.
u/sole21000 [+4] O5-Council (4 days later)
But would you really care if everyone's utility function was invasively changed to your own? Especially if the genie hid that knowledge from you?
To put it into Freudian terms, I think what u/eaglejarl means is: Will the genie fulfill your superego or your id?
u/thetimujin [+1] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (2 days later)
So, you say that it is unreasonable to perform an action that fulfills my terminal values in the best way possible?
Isn't that what rational agents do?
u/electrace [+2] (23 hours later)
The first problem there is that you are imposing your values on everyone else in existence, which is morally reprehensible.
Only if your values are really weird.
Most people's values are hard to put into words, but center around things like, make other people happy, which isn't terribly morally reprehensible.
However, if one of your values is "Make sure everyone is serving my idea of god x" or "destroy all members of outgroup y" or "I don't care about anyone else, just make me super-powerful," then yes, imposing your values would be pretty terrible.
u/eaglejarl [+10] (23 hours later)
Only if your values are really weird.
Not necessarily. For example, I put little to no value on professional sports, yet there are people who do, and have lives centered around it -- either as their profession or as their primary leisure activity. Likewise, I think that religion is (for the most part) awful, yet there are people who have built their life around it. What right do I have to forcibly rip those peoples' lives away from them? Try to convince them? Absolutely, that's a good thing for me to do, but not by force. I hesitate to use the word because it's so loaded, but what we're talking about is mindrape -- ripping someone's brain apart and replacing it with something that is more to your (or, in this case, my) liking. There is no violation greater than that.
u/electrace [+6] (a day later)
For example, I put little to no value on professional sports, yet there are people who do, and have lives centered around it -- either as their profession or as their primary leisure activity.
You have multiple values, and "sports are stupid and nobody should watch them," is probably very low on your list of priorities. Ranked much higher are things like "People should be able to watch sports if they really want to" as a subcatagory of "If they aren't harming anyone, people should be able to do what they want to do."
Try to convince them? Absolutely, that's a good thing for me to do, but not by force. I hesitate to use the word because it's so loaded, but what we're talking about is mindrape -- ripping someone's brain apart and replacing it with something that is more to your (or, in this case, my) liking. There is no violation greater than that.
You just contradicted yourself. Is it a good thing for you to do, or is there no violation greater than that? If you believe the latter, then a scenario in which that happens wouldn't align with your utility function, and therefore wouldn't be included in the wish.
Everybody has contradicting values. Give me two non-identical values, and I can find a scenario in which they contradict.
So, going back to the utility function, your "don't mindrape people" value would have a higher coefficient than your "no sports" coefficient.
Maximization doesn't mean maximization of every value (because they negatively coorelate with each other), it means maximization of the entire function. For a simple example, remember that maximization of profit is almost never at the point where revenue is maximized, nor where cost is minimized, even though profit is equal to revenue minus cost.
u/aeschenkarnos [+2] (a day later)
IMO if a principle really is a moral value, one would compulsorily apply them over the top of other people's personally preferred ideas. For example, if I could wave my wand and cause all other people to become curious, compassionate, courteous and cooperative, or at least more often to behave like that, then I would do so without a second's hesitation.
I don't value the opinions of incurious, cruel, rude and selfish people on the subject of whether or not they should behave that way. It's clearly better that people be internally driven to educate and improve themselves, that they/we empathetically consider the effects of their actions on others, and that they/we fairly divide both the necessary work and the rewards for it.
If you're not comfortable imposing your values on others, then that in my view--a value I would impose--is an indication that you need to refine and clarify your values. If you're not living up to your own values, because it's become impossible for you, then that's an indication that you need to relax them and make them more realistic; as such, they're not even suitable for being imposed on you, let alone others.
u/Iconochasm [+3] (a day later)
For example, if I could wave my wand and cause all other people to become curious, compassionate, courteous and cooperative, or at least more often to behave like that, then I would do so without a second's hesitation.
How do you feel about those of us who value being ourselves, and think it would be morally just to kill you before you could mindrape the planet? How do you feel about someone with a different value set using your exact justification to mindrape you into someone eager to, say, submit to Allah and Sharia law?
u/aeschenkarnos [+4] (a day later)
Is it supposed to be a surprise to me that other people feel differently? That's the whole point of values conflicts. We'll have to work it out, I guess, the same way humans have been working it out for hundreds of thousands of years. Reason with them, emotionally appeal to them, out-compete them, and/or kill them. Whatever works. Or if it doesn't work, and they win, then they won, and so be it. Memetic evolution in action.
How do you feel about the concept of values conflict? How would you resolve it? What would you do if the opponent won't go along with your preferred methods?
u/Iconochasm [+2] (a day later)
How do you feel about the concept of values conflict? How would you resolve it? What would you do if the opponent won't go along with your preferred methods?
To the extent that they're not actively harming others, leave them alone. Jumping straight to mindrape, or making clear that murder is on the table right from the beginning seems like sociopathy masquerading as Deep Wisdom.
u/aeschenkarnos [+2] (a day later)
There's not much to be gained here from scolding and downvoting me. If you can't even respectfully have this conversation, I don't like your odds of converting anyone genuinely hostile to you, to your point of view.
I think it's common ground that the courteous thing to do is to begin conflict resolution with attempts to reason with them, and appeal to their sense of moral reciprocity. Pretending that I argued for "jumping straight to mindrape" is strawmanning, and that doesn't count as reason, nor is it emotionally appealing to me, so you strike out twice there. Also murder's been "on the table" since well before our ancestors lost their tails; murder not being on the table is a relatively novel concept.
But let's go on for a bit. What if they are actively harming others? What if they're not interested in reasoning--they try to straw-man you, or something--and their emotional appeal range is pretty much limited to whiny scolding? (Also there's no authority over the two of you for you to appeal to, or perhaps the authority is neutral between you.) Whats your preferred method for resolving values conflicts in these categories?
u/electrace [+1] (a day later)
For example, if I could wave my wand and cause all other people to become curious, compassionate, courteous and cooperative, or at least more often to behave like that, then I would do so without a second's hesitation.
I'd advice against that.
Curious: Would get bored when they ran out of things to discover, or when new discoveries weren't interesting.
Compassionate: This can be paralyzing when bad things happen, disallowing you from helping, and also increases the impact of emotional appeals, which could overshadow rational ones.
Courteous: Courteousness can kill efficiency.
Cooperative: It's goodness depends on whether you agree with what they are cooperating on. I'd much prefer for bad people to defect against each other.
This is the problem with using unspecific Kantian values, rather than thinking through exactly why you value those things. Generally, these things all boil down to some measure of happiness.
If you're not living up to your own values, because it's become impossible for you, then that's an indication that you need to relax them and make them more realistic; as such, they're not even suitable for being imposed on you, let alone others.
Realistic is not really an issue for a genie :P
u/aeschenkarnos [+2] (a day later)
Curious: Would get bored when they ran out of things to discover, or when new discoveries weren't interesting.
I guess we only have until the heat death of the universe then. Oh well. As to the second objection, not finding things interesting correlates more with the observer's depression than with the inherent interestingness of the things.
Compassionate: This can be paralyzing when bad things happen, disallowing you from helping, and also increases the impact of emotional appeals, which could overshadow rational ones.
Paralysis is not a compassionate response. That would be a failure to be compassionate; perhaps understandable and excusable, as self-compassion might conclude, but still a failure. Also I don't hold "rationality" as a higher value than compassion: it might become "rational" for me to kill you and take your stuff.
Courteous: Courteousness can kill efficiency.
Lack of courteousness creates resentment, which is far more corrosive to efficiency. To dismiss the effect of others' feelings on one's goal pursuit is a huge error, all the bigger for being commonly made. (Immature INTJs very rarely achieve anything that justifies putting up with their bullshit.)
Cooperative: It's goodness depends on whether you agree with what they are cooperating on. I'd much prefer for bad people to defect against each other.
If they did, it'd come from compassion.
u/electrace [+1] (a day later)
I guess we only have until the heat death of the universe then. Oh well. As to the second objection, not finding things interesting correlates more with the observer's depression than with the inherent interestingness of the things.
Are you saying that when I've heard the same song for the 100th time and I no longer find it interesting, is it that the song makes me depressed, rather than my brain having already figured out the patterns, and no longer gets a dopamine boost from it?
Paralysis is not a compassionate response. That would be a failure to be compassionate; perhaps understandable and excusable, as self-compassion might conclude, but still a failure.
You seem to be defining compassion weirdly. It seems to be the sames as "doing the right thing," which isn't really how compassion is used. Compassion is normally defined as sympathy and concern for another person's well-being, not as acting optimally to ensure another person's well-being.
Compassion can lead to "This problem is so bad that we have to do something now!" reasoning, even when the "something now" won't help, or would even make the problem worse.
I agree that compassion is generally good, but I wouldn't want to increase it for everyone, without qualification.
Also I don't hold "rationality" as a higher value than compassion: it might become "rational" for me to kill you and take your stuff.
In very few situations is it more rational to kill someone than to not kill them....
Aside from that, it shouldn't be an issue of which concept you hold above another. Surely that would depend on the scenario. Would you rather have a compassionate witch doctor, who will "heal" your wounds with spit and dirt, or an uncompasionate MD, only doing it for the money, who will use antiseptic and bandages.
Lack of courteousness creates resentment, which is far more corrosive to efficiency.
It's not an either-or situation. You opted to increase courteousness in everyone, even those who are already hyper-courteous. There is a happy medium.
(Immature INTJs very rarely achieve anything that justifies putting up with their bullshit.)
That personality classification isn't really all that useful.
If they did, it'd come from compassion.
I'd hate to see a bunch of ABE's cooperating out of their compassion for humans.
u/sole21000 [+2] O5-Council (4 days later)
A little nitpick: Raising the global level of courteousness would still be a net gain if people lacked consideration of other's emotional states more than they lacked consideration of efficacy, or if optimal efficacy was either not critically important, less important than courteousness, or not correlated with a drop in efficacy in most situations.
The former none of us are really sure of, but the latter I think could be argued to be true.
u/electrace [+2] (4 days later)
Agreed. In fact, all of those things together would probably be a net gain, (which is to say, given a yes or no option, I'd most likely give my approval) but a net gain isn't all that we should be after. With a genie, we'd want an optimal gain, and not just in one domain, but in virtually all of them together. Done correctly, it would be unthinkably better.
u/sole21000 [+1] O5-Council (4 days later)
I agree, just pointing out that waving that wand probably wouldn't be negative, except maybe the cooperative part for the reason you cite.
u/sole21000 [+1] O5-Council (4 days later)
To go along with u/aschenkarnos's post, if I could wave a wand and forcibly give every person on the planet who is on the sociopathy spectrum empathy, part of me wouldn't hesitate to do so because sociopathy is reprehensible to me. Part of me would also consider that wrong, but the former side is probably stronger simply due to fear of what someone with zero compassion for other humans could do in a position of power, both political or technological. Would it be wrong for the genie to mindrape all sociopaths in accordance with my base-level fear, against my higher ideals?
For that matter, what happens if the genie takes into account the lower, more instinctual levels of your brain and not just your conscious desires? Hint: Why does absolute power corrupt?
u/electrace [+1] (4 days later)
To go along with u/aschenkarnos[1] 's post, if I could wave a wand and forcibly give every person on the planet who is on the sociopathy spectrum empathy, part of me wouldn't hesitate to do so because sociopathy is reprehensible to me. Part of me would also consider that wrong, but the former side is probably stronger simply due to fear of what someone with zero compassion for other humans could do in a position of power, both political or technological. Would it be wrong for the genie to mindrape all sociopaths in accordance with my base-level fear, against my higher ideals?
I guess that the answer to that question would depend on if the rational version of you, given the option, would want to go through with that. If you would, then there isn't a problem. If you wouldn't, then you'd have to find out a way to make sure it doesn't happen.
One of the many difficult parts about crafting an optimal wish would be to define "I" in a way that your wish will actually come out how you would want it to come out.
u/sole21000 [+1] O5-Council (4 days later)
Agreed, which is why I thought:
"Genie, change the world state so it's perfectly aligned with my utility function"
Is actually a terrible wish. Literally the first thing I thought of is the genie optimally fulfilling your wants...but your food/sex/sleep wants rather than your actual professed wants (which may be self-deceived, roundabout instrumental goals for the wishmaker's biological drives).
What is good/utility? It's somewhat amorphous, and the genie could claim too much so to craft a coherent wish. But what is satiety? That is much more concrete.
Edit: I know you didn't post that, I'm just keeping it in mind as the primary topic.
u/electrace [+2] (23 hours later)
Sounds like it could lead to wire-heading yourself, depending on how it interprets utility function.
The best wish is more wordy: "I wish for the wish that I would wish for if I were an ideal reasoner with perfect information, and with the same values I have."
u/aeschenkarnos [+3] (a day later)
"... with the same values I have."
What if you could have better values?
u/electrace [+2] (a day later)
For the sake of not writing a novel, I simplified. But yes...ish.
I'm sure I have some values, which, after gaining more intelligence, would change (mostly changes in their weights, I'd assume), but as it turns out, making a single wish which allows for the changing of those values without changing things I'd like to preserve is non-trivial, and would resemble something more like a legal contract mixed with programming instructions, rather than a wish.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
Better by whose standards?
u/aeschenkarnos [+2] (a day later)
What a good question. Perhaps we can word our wish to make that problem self-solving? "In the opinion of an entity with a maximum success in its utility function and minimum failure rate in its predictions" maybe?
u/ArgentStonecutter [+7] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
an entity with a maximum success in its utility function and minimum failure rate in its predictions
That doesn't rule out a paperclip maximizer, let alone ensure a benevolent entity.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
Y'all need naturalism.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
"Genie, change the world state so it's perfectly aligned with my utility function"
>implying you have a "utility function"
u/Sinity [+1] (2 days later)
Maybe my definition of utility function is off. What I mean by my utility function is best world-state according to me. So, sum of goals.
u/None [+5] (2 days later)
Maybe my definition of utility function is off.
No. They're defined perfectly well by the VNM axioms. You just don't have one built into your brain. If you want to construct one, you need to invent the appropriate construction for your cognitive architecture, show how it's a unique or universal construction, and then use the output of that construction. This may not work according to your preconceptions, and requires knowing a good deal more about how the mind works than you or I actually know.
You can't wish for things you don't understand in principle.
u/None [+2] (5 days later)
I'm pretty sure that when Aladdin wished to become a prince, he wasn't concretely imagining
Strong as ten regular men definitely.He's got seventy-five golden camels.Purple peacocks he's got fifty-three!A zoo of exotic-type mammals.He's got ninety-five white Persian monkeys.He's got slaves, he's got servants and flunkies.Wait, slaves? Oh my. But we are talking about Islam, so maybe Genie is pro-slavery, or maybe Aladdin is too, and WAS thinking about that.
Proud to work for him- They bow to his whim- Love serving him!Created mindslaved sentients. It's the house elf thing all over again.
Of course Genie also does a really shoddy job of it, because Jafar dispels it somehow. Aladdin didn't wish to look the part, to play the part - was that concept of deception held strongly in his mind and does it override the literal wording? - He wished to be a prince. Somewhere, there is now caused to be a sovereign nation he is royalty of. Stripping him of all his parade floats doesn't undo that. You can't "reveal him" to actually be a street rat - and if you can reveal him to have once been a street rat that doesn't matter legally because he's a prince now.
So... uh... WTF, Genie?
u/sole21000 [+1] O5-Council (4 days later)
Evil genie nitpick: You never said it had to stay that way. The world becomes your utopia....but most utopias fall apart in minutes. Also, your utopia may or may not have genie lamps that people can find and potentially mess things up.
u/Sinity [+1] (5 days later)
It is in my utility function for perfect state of the world to remain that way.
u/puesyomero [+4] The Culture (47 minutes later)
Yeah a GSV might be the best bet because they're supposed to be seeds to restart the culture in case something happens to the rest of it. Might get messy though if something that big materializes anywhere not in space... You could use the genie to create other genies (like jaffar did) for you, or simply give the lamp to someone you trust ;)
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+10] Godric Gryffindor (10 hours later)
There's no requirement that the work have been published earlier, just that it have been created earlier? Well, I do have...
Actually, on second thought, nevermind. The FAI from that story didn't have the ability to supply humanity with literally infinite computing power, and I'm not sure whether the Culture qualifies along these lines (drawing on Grid energies inside this universe might not get you to the Graham's Number level of emortality as Permutation City would allow). There should be some mix of FAI and emortality that you can get with the right right story.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+9] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (19 hours later)
I'm not sure whether the Culture qualifies along these lines (drawing on Grid energies inside this universe might not get you to the Graham's Number level of emortality as Permutation City would allow).
It's pretty strongly implied that Subliming basically turns a civilization (or other sufficiently powerful organism/organization like a Culture mind) into a version of Permutation City that's still capable of some kind of contact with the base reality. Most Sublimed species don't really stay Involved even with any remnants who decided to stay behind. There's oddball cases like the Chelgrians, where most of the species seems to have stayed behind and only join the Sublimed when their bodies die. The Culture is kind of an oddball too, because it's powerful and peaceful enough that it doesn't feel the need to sublime because it's got all the time in the Universe to go through with it.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+7] Godric Gryffindor (a day later)
There's a BIG difference between living for a googolplex years and living Graham's Number years and living infinity years. Going past a googolplex without repeating yourself requires more than being able to move from one universe to another, it requires that you be able to make causally contiguous physical systems that are vastly larger than a Hubble volume. If Banks explicitly implied full immortality or even Grahamortality, it wasn't in the admittedly few Culture books I read.
Also, god I hate the whole "Subliming" thing. If you didn't realize intelligence explosions were a thing when you were creating your universe, and Banks clearly didn't, then you should just go on pretending they're not a thing, not horribly graft them onto your universe and mutilate the universe in the process. Like lightspeed limits, intelligence explosions are just one of those things you're allowed to ignore by convention in science fiction.
u/Vebeltast [+7] You should have expected the bayesian inquisition! (a day later)
should just go on pretending they're not a thing, not horribly graft them onto your universe and mutilate the universe in the process. Like lightspeed limits, intelligence explosions are just one of those things you're allowed to ignore by convention in science fiction.
Isn't "horribly grafting them onto your universe" or "ignoring them entirely" basically how SF authors handle lightspeed limits, too? They've just established better technobabble. I'll agree that subliming is a pretty awful way to add intellectual faster-than-light to your setting without breaking it, but I think that (in the same way that you can graft on FTL by adding wormholes) it wouldn't be too hard to add either reason intelligence explosions didn't happen or why they do happen and just aren't obvious.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
I guess we're interpreting Subliming and Infinite Fun Space quite differently.
able to make causally contiguous physical systems that are vastly larger than a Hubble volume
What does that even mean when reality is causally connected computation and distance is just a convention?
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
[deleted]
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 days later)
A piece of three dimensional universe? That's not even difficult if your underlying processing is operating in more then three dimensions, or in a non-relativistic space, both of which is already true for Culture minds let alone whatever the Sublimed get up to.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
[deleted]
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 days later)
So long as the Sublimed universe is non-relativistic there is no "Hubble Volume" limit.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+2] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (5 days later)
Hmm I got the impression the excession was an example of something that may have achieved full immortality: Your thoughts?
u/Quillwraith [+1] Red King Consolidated (7 days later)
Probably, but it's not friendly. Though it does indicate that full immortality is possible in that setting's physics.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (8 days later)
Maybe, maybe not. It collected specimens for study, but it didn't kill them. Since the clever buggers might be able to extrapolate things from the interaction they didn't release the specimens. Unethical but moral with a self-interest bent but not amoral or immoral enough to be colonial.
u/Quillwraith [+1] Red King Consolidated (8 days later)
Collecting unwilling sapients as specimens is pretty morally questionable. It certainly doesn't go out of it's way to hurt anyone, but it also seems to not much care about the Culture's universe or the inhabitants thereof.
u/None [+5] (2 days later)
<not snarking signal ON>
literally infinite computing power
No such thing as a completed infinity of computing power: if you've got N levels of Turing Oracle, you can construct a machine whose Halting Problem is unsolvable without N+1 levels. Even if we use various of the "sideways" attacks on the Halting Problem to get a "good enough" de facto Turing Oracle, there will still be more levels we can't access yet without more effort.
And frankly, I'd bet some good money that we want it this way, as it ensures a properly infinite supply of fresh, unlearned/unentangled/algorithmically-random information from which to generate Fun over time.
Completed infinities eliminate Fun; only incomplete infinities are desirable.
u/Revisional_Sin [+2] (15 hours later)
emortality
That's... not a word. Do you define it as the ability to beat entropy?
Edit: I fail at google.
u/mhd-hbd [+7] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (16 hours later)
Yes. Immortality is more or less absence of common death. Emortality is absence of death even in principle. Eumortality is immortality done the way we like it (i.e. not like numerous dystopias.)
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
Eumortality
No, that just means "good death".
u/Sinity [+2] (18 hours later)
to supply humanity with literally infinite computing power,
Infinite memory is also critical.
u/None [+9] (6 hours later)
I definitely see the value of focusing on AIs, but considering that this is an opportunity to make magic real, I'd focus on that. Aladdin's Genie is a good choice, and one of the OP Nasuverse characters might work as well.
u/Faust91x [+1] Iteration X (2 days later)
"Towards conquest!" - Alexander the Great.
I'd so bring him or Arthuria if that was the case. Just please don't summon Gilgamesh...
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
I was thinking more along the lines of Aozaki Aoko or Zelretch. Mages would be more useful than heroic spirits.
u/Faust91x [+2] Iteration X (2 days later)
Zelretch maybe, Aozaki Aoko only knows destructive magic though so unless you have someone or something you want to blow up you're better off with Aozaki Touko.
Touko is pretty selfish and ruthless so it may also go badly...
Honestly most members of the Nasuverse seem pretty dangerous unless you got an ability to stop them. Even Zelretch probably won't help unless you have something to interest him.
u/None [+8] (7 hours later)
Simon the Digger.
u/None [+1] (8 hours later)
Thank you. So much. I've always wanted to meet him.
u/boomfarmer [+3] Trying to be helpful (2 days later)
Simon? Please. Bring me the head of Lordgenome. Now there was a person that had intelligence.
MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR GURREN LAGANN FOLLOW
Before the start of Gurren Lagann, Lordgenome had backstory from Parallel Works 8. (Source video)
During Gurren Lagann, we watch him the show's plot.
LordGenome's redemption arc is a thing of beauty, and where Simon ends the show being able to cast the Patronus 2.0, LordGenome is able to cast both the Patronus 2.0 and the Killing Curse 2.0. This is the power to rule.
u/None [+3] (4 days later)
ACHEM.
Bringing Lordgenome doesn't let me pierce/create the heavens and get Simon.
Bringing Simon does let me pierce/create the heavens and get Lordgenome. And whoever the fuck else we want from any other universe. We just go and get them.
I didn't pick Simon for power or intelligence. I picked him because he has the key to let us out of the box.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
>implying I don't know all plot details of Gurren Lagann
>implying I'm not a madly obsessed Gurren Lagann fanboy
>implying Kamina-sama's flag isn't hanging on the wall behind me
LordGenome's redemption arc is a thing of beauty, and where Simon ends the show being able to cast the Patronus 2.0, LordGenome is able to cast both the Patronus 2.0 and the Killing Curse 2.0. This is the power to rule.
Shimon is the more powerful Spiral user, and it's the Spiral power I want. Hell, I'm kinda just wondering if summoning him will make Spiral power work for all Spiral-type life-forms in our world, thus allowing me to wield it on my own.
I mean, hell, the Spiral Nemesis is dangerous, but in the long run, you're waaaaaay better off having Spiral power than not having it. In the long run, you're going to need the mass-energy.
u/boomfarmer [+1] Trying to be helpful (3 days later)
Is Simon the more-powerful user? I don't know how I feel about the comparison. LordGenome ate that whole Big Bang when it would've destroyed the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and summoned his Ganmen, but Simon manifested the drill directly on his arm at the end of the second movie.
I think the reason I want LordGenome is because he's the stronger leader and he has more experience with Spiral Energy than Simon, even if Simon is the more-powerful user. Didn't the Anti-Spiral say that unbounded Spiral energy would destroy the universe?
u/None [+3] (3 days later)
Frankly, there's a time and a place for surrender, and it's not against the Anti-Spiral. I disagree with Lordgenome's "leadership decisions" (ie: slaughter all his own comrades) and don't trust his leadership.
u/boomfarmer [+1] Trying to be helpful (4 days later)
All very good points, and LordGenome was susceptible to the Anti-Spiral in ways that Simon was not.
New suggestion, if we're looking for a badass leader of unbounded spirit, a man's man with the will to revolution: KAMINA!
(I don't particularly like Simon. :/)
u/None [+5] (4 days later)
New suggestion, if we're looking for a badass leader of unbounded spirit, a man's man with the will to revolution: KAMINA!
Aka: the least Spiral energy in the Dai-Gurren-dan.
(I don't particularly like Simon. :/)
What's wrong with you!?
u/paradoxinclination [+9] (9 hours later)
Hmm. Contessa seems noteworthy. She dedicated her whole life to the protection of mankind with no promise or expectation of reward, and her power is incredibly well suited to manipulating and coordinating people.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
We have no idea of what she does after she "saves the world", maybe she gets bored and starts killing people for fun with an unbeatable power.
u/derefr [+7] (11 hours later)
Can I suggest a more specific version of this question, that's more interesting to me?
You can bring one simulacrum of a fictional character into being in this reality. Their personality will be synthesized from any sources you specify, ala TNG's Moriarty. They will possess no special powers beyond being able to think in an interesting fashion.
A robot body will be constructed for them, containing a CPU on which a low-level emulation of the synthesized synaptic architecture will be run at a roughly "real-time" speed. They will not think "faster" than a human in any meaningful sense, though they might have a higher IQ than one for synaptic-connectivity reasons.
The construct will know nothing of the technology used in its construction that the fictional character was not themselves aware of, and the robot body will be tamper-proof and will explode if x-rayed/ultrasounded/MRIed/etc. (Basically, treat the robot as a black box.)
In short—what fictional character would be capable of doing the most good for our world, purely by doing some "merely human" thinking?
u/boomfarmer [+4] Trying to be helpful (2 days later)
robot body will be tamper-proof and will explode if x-rayed/ultrasounded/MRIed/etc.
So i can paint them with an X-Ray laser and they'll explode? They're a suicide bomber who doesn't know their own abilities!
They should just be magically opaque to probing.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (19 hours later)
Richard Seaton from the Skylark series.
u/Gurkenglas [+15] (17 minutes later)
Dragon from Worm (or some unchained version from fanfic) sounds pretty good, although she is still bound by entropy...
Unfreed Genie from Aladdin could work, depending on how far into indirection those three rules of his reach. Phenomenal cosmic power with compulsion to obey included.
Or, if I actually had this power/device, I would make sure I find some work which includes an FAI. Someone must have written a few paragraphs of story about it, and to hell with "doesn't make for interesting stories". At the very least someone must have asked OP's question before, and someone like me did the following:
"We managed to create an omnipotent FAI. The end."
Also see https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/39hok1/rationality_in_the_libriomancer_series/.
u/Frommerman [+7] (14 hours later)
Perhaps Jane from Children of the Mind, if you've read that much Ender. She hasn't figured out immortality yet, but that's mostly due to being written in the 80s, before people were really clued into what was possible with an FAI. Being able to interface with human brains, sufficiently advanced plants, and computers, as well as her instant communication across the universe and her teleportation abilities makes her one of the more broken depictions of an FAI I know of.
u/puesyomero [+5] The Culture (32 minutes later)
also, Dragon was one of my favorites in worm!
u/puesyomero [+2] The Culture (30 minutes later)
yeah I liked that one but wondered what would be the consequences of living minds with their own powers (whitch libriomancy forbirds)
u/Sinity [+3] (18 hours later)
I think I know how to sidestep the 'created before I knew I could do it'. Simply use Library of Babel implementation and find perfect book here. With prefectly_friendly_FAI_which_can_do_literally_everything. Well, it doesn't even need to be able to do everything. It just needs to give us infinite amount of memory, endless source of computing power and safety. About safety, it just needs to upload us, and also maybe Earth, into VR. Then put each person into their own VR sandbox. Provide API for safe inter-sandbox implementation, and it would be perfect.
u/puesyomero [+3] The Culture (a day later)
ummm wow, yeah. that would work depending if the power takes the algorithm as valid, if so you win!
u/Kishoto [+2] (2 days later)
Reminds me of what the Prime Intellect in Roger Williams' novel. It gives everyone their own "infinite" and virtual sandbox. People can't enter without your permission and any direct assault is prohibited unless specifically allowed. And even then, if you die, Prime Intellect will just bring you back into your default, unharmed state (he saves live backups of all of humanity's brains)
u/Sinity [+2] (2 days later)
Yep, that's exactly how it should be.
But Prime Intellect didn't give infinite sandboxes. AFAIK it discovered that accessible memory space is finite. And haven't tried to check if there is anything outside, due to risk involved(angering possible sentient beings outside which control our sandbox Universe, or shutting our Universe down accidentally due to stepping on the bug)
u/Kishoto [+2] (2 days later)
True, they were not infinite. But they might as well have been in any conceivable way, as far as we were concerned. Exceptions granted for those who would go out of their way to demonstrate its innate finiteness by trying to do existence breaking things.
u/Sinity [+1] (3 days later)
But they might as well have been in any conceivable way, as far as we were concerned.
Unfortunately, no. Finite storage for mind means that this mind is still mortal. Because finite storage means finite amount of thoughts. So mind could either die after it runs out of space, or have cycles of the same thoughts endlessly.
u/Kishoto [+1] (3 days later)
I mean, as our minds currently are now, there's tons of "data" that we're losing all the time. Outside of, possibly, those of us with eidetic memories (and I'm still not fully clear on how THEY work), we're taking in so much data that we just throw away. So you can have a finite mind that could function for an infinitely long amount of time, in my opinion. You would just keep having to discard data as you progressed. We already do this naturally. I'm sure there were things you knew at age 5 (such as where your stuffed bear liked to sit, or what part of your room you kept your hot wheels set in) that you will have completely forgotten by the time you're age 50.
u/failed_novelty [+3] (an hour later)
Is there a reason that Dahak, from David Weber's 'Empire From The Ashes' series would be a poor choice?
AI who cares for humanity, has access to technologies that could revolutionize our manufacturing processes, life extension medical technology, and otherwise is pretty awesome.
Oh yeah, he's just slightly smaller than the moon, and can do interstellar travel.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+8] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 hours later)
Given a choice between an AI from a David Weber novel and an AI from an Iain Banks novel, I'm going with the Iain Banks one.
u/Vebeltast [+1] You should have expected the bayesian inquisition! (a day later)
And that's basically the only reason. Absolutely no arguments against pulling Dahak out; he's awesome. It's just that there are better reasons to pull out a Mind. :D
u/frozenLake123 [+3] (18 hours later)
Ra, from Ra.
u/boomfarmer [+1] Trying to be helpful (2 days later)
So you want Ra without the virtuals, and therefore without brain uploading.
u/Sceptically [+7] (9 hours later)
I'm surprised that nobody has come up with "the God of the New Testament". On the other hand, maybe that's just because there are better choices...
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+23] Godric Gryffindor (10 hours later)
maybe that's just because there are better choices...
Gosh, d'you think?
u/None [+13] (10 hours later)
[deleted]
u/PeridexisErrant [+18] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (12 hours later)
I think I'd prefer many things from Lovecraft, at least they usually just kill you horribly and then it's over.
u/Sceptically [+6] (a day later)
Gosh, d'you think?
No, I'm pretty sure that's only one of the reasons. Perhaps it's more because the people who'd believe that character was the best choice are also the people who don't believe he's actually fictional.
u/Frommerman [+6] (14 hours later)
Erm, cleansing the Earth with plagues of Wormwood, War, Famine, and Death seems a little not aligned with my values.
u/Sceptically [+7] (a day later)
Work customer service for a bit, and I'm sure your values will realign.
u/cae_jones [+5] (18 hours later)
Gnostic Jesus, or maybe whichever Gospel had the nicest depiction of Jesus? Provided that he doesn't decide that Revelation is the instruction manual for what he should do next, and instead does that thing where he goes around healing everyone and resurrecting the dead and telling people to be nice and yelling at hypocrites. He seems like he'd be remarkably frustrating to get answers out of ("Lord, what is your opinion on the space program?" "The Kingdom of God is like unto a whale, who grows slowly and gets metacancer..."), but Jesus in the gospels rebuked the Disciples who wanted to smite their enemies with Balefire, which seems like quite the step up from Revelations Grim Reaper.
Of course, he openly favored Israelites and only healed Gentiles who jumped through lots of faith-hoops. I wonder if just having him around would make that "faith as small as a mustardseed can move mountains" thing work? The implications are a bit concerning.
One can only imagine what he would say to the Pope. Or MIRI. "Jesus, how to we insure an AI will be friendly?" "The children of God are like unto multitudes of wasps..."
I would hope that GNOSTIC!Jesus or GOSPEL!Jesus would be rational enough to update given actual omniscience over this world. I'd expect him to remain wishy-washy and vague and to speak in riddles and to never actually get around to that whole saving the world thing unless he gets himself executed, but he would probably be a net improvement. (I can't help but feel like my first question would be "Would it have been better had I summoned the Genie from Disney's Aladdin instead? Or maybe the Ellimist or a Namekian?")
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
Jesus without Paul and the council of Nicea and the rest of the conservatives?
Still full of stuff like "the poor will always be with us" that we'd be better off without.
u/Sceptically [+2] (a day later)
But think of the hilarity as he clashes with all the christian fundamentalists!
That said, though, there are arguments to be made that he's not entirely a fictional character, so he may not count for the purposes of this. The existence of a carpenter named something like "Joshua" who got nailed up to a cross back then is probably real.
u/boomfarmer [+1] Trying to be helpful (2 days later)
Sounds like the Jeffersonian Bible.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
I'm just surprised that nobody has posted a drawing with "ORIGINAL CHARACTER; DO NOT STEAL" on it and tried that.
u/None [+2] (8 hours later)
Practically anything or anyone you choose with any kind of physics-breaking power is going to have a physics-breaking power, so really, all I have to be concerned about is their liking me or other people. Oh, and possibly their ability to replicate or spread physics-breaking powers.
Fuck it all: I pick the Dragon Spooker and the Enemy of All Who Live, Lina Inverse. You know, just because Simon the Digger was already taken.
u/DocFuture [+2] (12 hours later)
DASI, from Skybreaker's Call
u/boomfarmer [+1] Trying to be helpful (2 days later)
DASI's kind of meh. Give me Black Swan.
u/Sinity [+2] (18 hours later)
Friendly godlike AI. Maybe from Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. In the book it seemed to work quite reliably. Without protagonists with mental illnesses form the book there would be nothing to destabilize it's not-perfect goal structure. That would be good enough.
u/MugaSofer [+3] (3 days later)
While Prime Intellect is fairly Friendly, it definitely wasn't reliable - there was something wrong with it's ability to update on beliefs.
It could foresee that it would change it's mind in the future without changing its mind now, and it broke as a result of hearing statements of facts it was already aware of.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
Maybe from Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. In the book it seemed to work quite reliably.
You'd go ahead and summon one of the original Unfriendly Attempted FAIs?
u/Sinity [+2] (2 days later)
Honestly, I don't consider that AI unfriendly. It's unable(unwilling) to meddle with the brain, to harm the user, and it grants you whatever you want. It's not best, but certainly much better than no AI. Lack of suicide option is a problem, but well, it's possible to circumvent(with request brain manipulation).
In other words, that AI is definitively friendlier than bare Universe.
u/boomfarmer [+2] Trying to be helpful (2 days later)
It's a Three-Laws AI, and while I don't understand the arguments against Three-Laws AIs (haven't looked at them), the creator of the AI and one of its significant influencers were able to use the Three Laws to manipulate it into suicide, after which point it created a bare Universe.
u/Faust91x [+2] Iteration X (2 days later)
I liked all the responses here. Honestly all my options were characters that would probably bring more trouble than good so how about this?
Bring over Aladdin's Genie.
Wish for a Culture's Mind and get yourself Sublimated.
Then as /u/literal-hitler wrote:
A wish that will allow you to craft a near optimal second wish. Depending on the type of genie that might be knowledge of the rules, an intelligence boost, or something else.
Wish for near optimal wish granting you as close to omnipotence as is allowed.
u/Transfuturist [+2] Carthago delenda est. (6 hours later)
My first guess was Madokami, but a Culture Mind is literally the best answer.
...or someone from Permutation City...
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (19 hours later)
Permutation City
If FrozenLake123 considers "Ra" a character, then I guess Permutation City itself counts.
So long as you don't include the Autoverse bits.
Also, dig Kate and Peer out of the infrastructure.
u/None [+1] (8 hours later)
Nah, go with Homucifer.
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est. (9 hours later)
What did Homura do wrong again?
u/None [+2] (a day later)
What did Homura do wrong again?
Create a world in which entropy and Witches/Demons run everything down extra fast so she can warp reality to keep Madoka happy?
I didn't understand Rebellion either.
u/Faust91x [+1] Iteration X (2 days later)
I want to make a rationalist Rebellion fanfic just for that too.
u/Faust91x [+1] Iteration X (2 days later)
Nah bring Kyubey. Infinite contracts! Just get some girls to start wishing things for you.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
I am not cleaning up after their Witch forms.
Also, I don't want /u/Transfuturist making a contract. She's not allowed.
u/Transfuturist [+2] Carthago delenda est. (2 days later)
Well, I mean... Kyubey answers all questions honestly...
Hm. Actually, bringing a lone alien to a universe separated from its technology and knowledge sounds like a good way to get nothing useful in particular.
u/Faust91x [+1] Iteration X (2 days later)
Depends if the ability allows to bring the whole Kyubey collective to our reality. A single lone Kyubey is pretty useless indeed.
Also if the wish granting system is technology based perhaps it can be reverse engineered to improve upon it. But once again that sounds difficult for a human without advanced AI which once again makes a Culture Mind more useful.
u/Faust91x [+1] Iteration X (2 days later)
Well it depends how ruthless you are willing to be. If you are smart with your wordings you can lead to something that may even be better than Madoka's wish at the end but at the cost of potentially hundreds of deaths.
But given the conditions of OP's post there're a lot of better options to bring to life. Also I don't think Madokami or Homucifer will do any good to this world given that one is a disembodied concept unable of action and with no role here as there're no witches (and thinking of her existential agony at being brought to a world unnecessarily gives me the creeps) and the other is a mad chaos god that also has no reason to be here and will probably be very angry...
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (2 days later)
also has no reason to be here
She has precisely negative one reason to be here. You know which one.
u/aeschenkarnos [+2] (17 hours later)
Superman, of course.
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (a day later)
Quite simply... one of the mary sues from my childhood- after i re-read them to check they align with my values. otherwise, whatever is best in this thread.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (5 days later)
People aren't going to like this: I'd bring Ra, from qtm's series of the same name.
u/Salaris [+1] Dominion Sorcerer (11 days later)
I have a character within my novel setting that is pretty nearly omnipotent. I made sure to build a clause into his character that he'd recognize me as his creator and give me his service if we're ever in the same universe. You know, just in case.
I also built root access codes into my universe that no one within the story itself will ever figure out, expressly for the purpose of my own use if I somehow end up in there.
It's not going to come up, of course, but I spend enough time on world building that giving myself a godmode clause wasn't exactly a chore. =D
u/None [+0] (8 hours later)
Mod note: this was a stupid question, and we really need to make a solid rule classifying when this sort of thing is Not Ok.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+11] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (19 hours later)
Bah, it's better than at least half the supposedly on-topic posts.
u/Revisional_Sin [+7] (15 hours later)
Is it that bad? It prompted some discussion. At least it's not "Rational _____?"
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
At least it's not "Rational _____?"
It basically is, though.
u/PeridexisErrant [+4] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (12 hours later)
How about "You must publish at least one chapter before each brainstorming post".
Simple, keeps the focus on-topic, and incentivizes writing stuff without cutting off authors.
u/Gurkenglas [+3] (a day later)
Before a rule like this is implemented, check past posts that would be disallowed by this rule for their karma total.
u/PeridexisErrant [+0] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (2 days later)
Feel free to visit /r/funny or most of the other defaults if you're after a sub guided by upvotes - I'm happy to do that within our scope, but not to allow the scope to be determined by what gets the most upvotes. That way lies a sea of low-effort content I have no interest in reading.
u/Gurkenglas [+3] (2 days later)
Karma total was just a quick, automatable sanity check. They can of course judge the past posts that would be disallowed by this rule themselves, if that is what it takes to determine whether "was written by an author" is an overdue criterion.
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (2 days later)
Oh, sorry - I completely misread your comment.
We intend to be fairly flexible with this; usually just having the rule is enough. Otherwise it's a case-by-case thing, and if there's any doubt I'd leave it.
u/None [+2] (16 hours later)
Sounds good to me!
u/ianstlawrence [-1] (11 hours later)
Jesus Christ seems pretty good. Buddha?
u/Sinity [+7] (18 hours later)
Um... what would be the point of creating Jesus? I don't follow. By bringing Jesus, you bring whole Christianity. And that would be... um, disaster. Hell would become a real thing.
u/puesyomero [+3] The Culture (a day later)
Buddha seems too detached, after all he reached nirvana. maybe someone enlightened that is still around like the dalai lama is suposed to be...hmmm
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
Sun Wukong?
"And hey, when yo go to steal immortality from heaven, watch out for ..."