The altruistic assumption given here seems implausible for a utility function ultimately derived from evolution, so while it's an interesting exercise I'm not sure there's anything to be worried about in practice.
I'm not worried by the result because there are two very implausible constraints: the number of possible utility functions and the utility of the compromise strategy. Given that there are, in fact, many possible utility functions, it seems really really unlikely that there is a strategy that has 3/10 the utility of the optimal strategy for every possible utility function. Additionally, some pairs of utility functions won't be conducive to high-utility compromise strategies. For example: what if one civilization has paperclip maximization as a value, and an...
Edit: This comment is retracted. My comment is wrong, primarily because it misses the point of the post, which simply presents a usual game theory-style payoff matrix problem statement. Thanks to Tyrrell McAllister for pointing out the error, apologies to the readers. See this comment for details. (One more data point against going on a perceptual judgement at 4AM, and not double-checking own understanding before commenting on a perceived flaw in an argument. A bit of motivated procrastination also delayed reviewing Tyrrell's response.)
...Humanity has also
An interesting idea, but I'm afraid the idea is little more than interesting. Given all your premises, it does follow that compromise would be the optimal strategy, but I find some of them unlikely:
I'm not sure if this qualifies as a mistake per se, but it seems very implausible to me that the only advanced civilization-enabling utility functions are altruistic towards aliens. Is there evidence in favor of that hypothesis?
To make this more interesting, interpret it as a true prisoner's dilemma. I.E. the aliens care about something stupid like maximizing paperclips.
I consider this to be a true prisoner's dilemma already (basically, any prisoner's dilemma is true if it's written out in numbers and you believe that the numbers really capture everything). You can make it more paperclippy by substituting fi(Sj) = 0.
Anyone else worried by this result, or have I made a mistake?
To update my reply to Silas Barta, after a little reflection I would say this:
The various species are supposed to possess common knowledge of each other's utility functions, and of each other's epistemic beliefs about how these utility functions can be satsified.
Since the various species' preferences are described by utility functions, we must assume that each species has self-modified collectively (or so the humans believe) such that they collectively obey the von Neumann-Morgenstern axioms ...
If some far away world implements utility function f2 and strategy S2, I intuitively feel like I ought to care more about f2(S2) than about f0(S2), even if my own utility function is f0. Provided, of course, that S2 doesn't involve destroying my part of the world.
I don't expect that humans, on meeting aliens, would try to impose our ethical standards on them. We generally wouldn't see their minds as enough like ours to see their pain as real pain. The reason I think this is that very few people think we should protect all antelopes from lions, or all dolphins from sharks. So the babyeater dillemma seems unrealistic to me.
You are worried that, given your assumptions, civilizations might not be willing to pay an extremely high price to do things that aliens would like if they knew about them, which they don't.
But one of your assumptions is that every civilization has a moral system that advocates attacking and enslaving everyone they meet who thinks differently from them.
It would be worrying if a slightly bad assumption led to a very bad conclusion, but a very bad assumption leading to a slightly bad conclusion doesn't strike me as particularly problematic.
An interesting question. Some thoughts here:
Does this type of reasoning mean it is a good idea to simulate lots of alien civilizations (across lots of different worlds), to see what utility functions emerge, and how frequently each type emerges?
It seems like detailed simulation is quite a sensible strategy anyway, if we're utility trading (detailed enough to create conscious beings). We could plausibly assume that each utility function f(i) assigns positive utility to the aliens of type (i) existing in a world, as long as their welfare in that world ex
If you knew something about the expected development process of potential alien civilizations and could use that information to estimate a probability of them defecting in case like this, then which utility functions would you include in your set of aliens to cooperate with? Roughly, should you cooperate with each civilization proportional to your expectation of each civilization cooperating? Also, should you cooperate proportional to the number of expected civilizations implementing each utility function?
This seems unavoidable to me, as long as you first ...
Humanity has also run a large number of simulations of how alien worlds evolve. It has determined that of those civilizations which reach the same level of advancement - that know their own utility function and have a strategy for optimizing it - there is an equal probability that they will end up with each of 10 possible utility functions.
No, humanity isn't going to do that. We'd be exposing ourselves to blackmail from any simulated world whose utility function had certain properties -- it'd be summoning a basilisk. For humanity's utility function in particular, there is an asymmetry such that the potential losses from acausal trade dramatically outweigh the potential gains.
Assuming that TDT doesn't apply, the fact that we would be in a prisoner's dilemma is irrelevant. The only rational option for humanity would be to defect by maximising its local utility - whether humans defect or cooperate in the dilemma has no effect on what the aliens choose to do.
So really the problem is only interesting from a timeless decision theory perspective (I feel that you might have made this more explicit in your post).
According to my sketchy understanding of TDT, if in a prisoner's dilemma both parties can see the other's source code, or oth...
They are altruistic, in the sense that they care just as much about far-away aliens that they can't even see as they do about members of their own species.
none of the players has any causal influence on any other.
An aggregate score without any causal influence is meaningless. Without influence on each other, each should pursue its own best interest, not some meaningless compromise solution.
Anyone else worried by this result, or have I made a mistake?
Surely only utilitarians would be concerned by it. Others will just reject the "altruistic" assumption as being terribly unrealistic.
Anyone can reject the assumption as unrealistic. I don't see what utilitarianism has to do with that.
An interesting question. Some thoughts here:
Does this type of reasoning mean it is a good idea to simulate lots of alien civilizations (across lots of different worlds), to see what utility functions emerge, and how frequently each type emerges?
It seems like detailed simulation is quite a sensible strategy anyway, if we're utility trading (detailed enough to create conscious beings). We could plausibly assume that each utility function f(i) assigns positive utility to the aliens of type (i) existing in a world, as long as their welfare in that world exceeds an acceptable threshold. (For instance, if we imagine worlds with or without humans, then we tend to prefer the ones with, unless they are being horribly tortured etc..) So by simulating alien species (i), and checking that they generally prefer to exist (rather than trying to commit suicide) we are likely doing them a favour according to f(i), and we can assume that since our TDT decision is linked to theirs, we are increasing the number of worlds humans exist in too.
I'm intrigued by the idea that TDT leads to a converged "average utilitity" function, across all possible worlds with TDT civilizations...
Imagine it's the future, and everything has gone according to plan. Humanity has worked out its own utility function, f0, and has worked out a strategy S0 to optimize it.
Humanity has also run a large number of simulations of how alien worlds evolve. It has determined that of those civilizations which reach the same level of advancement - that know their own utility function and have a strategy for optimizing it - there is an equal probability that they will end up with each of 10 possible utility functions. Call these f0...f9.
(Of course, these simulations are coarse-grained enough to satisfy the nonperson predicate).
Humanity has also worked out the optimal strategy S0...S9 for each utility function. But they just happen to score poorly on all of the others:
fi(Si) = 10
fi(Sj) = 1 for i != j
In addition, there is a compromise strategy C:
fi(C) = 3 for all i.
The utility functions, f0 through f9, satisfy certain properties:
They are altruistic, in the sense that they care just as much about far-away aliens that they can't even see as they do about members of their own species.
They are additive: if one planet implements Sj and another implements Sk, then:
fi(Sj on one planet and Sk on the other) = fi(Sj) + fi(Sk).
(This is just to make things easier - the problem I'm describing will still apply in cases where this rule doesn't hold).
They are non-negotiable. They won't "change" if that civilization encounters aliens with a different utility function. So if two of these civilisations were to meet, we would expect it to be like the humans and the babyeaters: the stronger would attempt to conquer the weaker and impose their own values.
In addition, humanity has worked out that it's very likely that a lot of alien worlds exist, i.e. aliens are really really real. They are just too far away to see or exist in other Everett branches.
So given these not entirely ridiculous assumptions, it seems that we have a multiplayer prisoner's dilemma even though none of the players has any causal influence on any other. If the universe contains 10 worlds, and each chooses its own best strategy, then each expects to score 19. If they all choose the compromise strategy then each expects to score 30.
Anyone else worried by this result, or have I made a mistake?