scrape_r_rational/data/cache/2e94m7.md

[BST] All-powerful wish-granting device of unknown origin and intentions

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:

  For more information [see here](http://lesswrong.com/lw/ld/the_hidden_complexity_of_wishes/) 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:

    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/loonyphoenix:

    Wow, lesswrong.com has an article for everything.
    

• u/Prankster42:

  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:

  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/clawclawbite:

  "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/holomanga:

  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:

    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:

  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/Nepene:

  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.
  
  1. I wish that this wishbook's wish making powers would adhere to my 
  mental intent and desires.
  
  2. I wish that all wish granting entities and objects other than this wish book would be unable to grant wishes.
  
  3. 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.
  
  4. I wish that knowledge of advanced AI building, nuclear fusion power stations, and interstellar travel would become common place worldwide.
  
  5. 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:

  "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/TimeLoopedPowerGamer:

  >...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.
  

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