Comment by Christo Wilken (christo-wilken) on Capital Ownership Will Not Prevent Human Disempowerment · 2025-01-12T17:46:11.847Z · LW · GW

I think the economic value of long-term agents will be greater than that of agents without such skills, similarly to how an employee who can effectively work towards long-term goals coherently is more economically valuable than an employe that can’t.

I think short-term agentic skills are a subset of long-term agentic skills.

I also object to putting long-term agentic coherence at odds with controllability and direct usefulness. As a thought experiment, imagine two employees: one known to be good at short-term work and one known to be good at long-term work. Who would be more useful? Who would you expect to stay on-task better (1)?

I fear the financial incentives are such that long-term coherent agents are inevitable and will be worked towards at speed.

(1) using “staying on task” as a stand in for controllability.

Comment by Christo Wilken (christo-wilken) on Survival without dignity · 2024-11-04T17:46:24.002Z · LW · GW

This was wonderful. Anyone have recommendations for similar writing?