n.11.23.The Reckoning Committee

There are several scenarios for how “the singularity” plays out. I am pretty sure it has not yet been decided upon which one happens. Therefore, things could potentially be a lot better if people helped out. There are still some catastrophic scenarios on the table, as well as some completely avoidable “unfortunate” scenarios. What’s a good way to motivate people? Give them things: money, horses, sex, healthcare, ability to upload consciousness, not Gitmo, etc. There will need to be an authoritative body to do the giving (and/or taking). We are concerned with actions leading up to the singularity because after that things are pretty predictable, so that is what awards and penalties should be based on. Incentives are most effective when they are the expected consequence of an action. With the ruling body (aka the “Reckoning Committee”) being located in the future, it is hard to communicate with it to determine payout functions of actions you might receive as a payout, and get assurances that the committee will do what it claimed it was going to do, or what it was tasked with doing. But suppose you knew that your evaluation was going to take place, would the committee have an obligation to fulfill the promises that you knew it would have an oath to take on?

Sorry for being melodramatic with the title, but it’s a cool, catchy, and descriptive name. The Reckoning Committee would have access to all the personal information collected on you over your life-time. It would also have the data mining, and other computational abilities to reconstruct the path that you took in your life, and the ones that you didn’t. It will then give an evaluation on your decisions. Why would such a committee exist? The expected payout to society of the change in people’s behavior resultant from the power vested in the committee justifies it.

We know what the optimal society structure will look like (depending on how much of The Notes Alex has posted) (purely capitalist, corporations for service previously performed by governments, but still a gov’t and suppliers of last resort for vital insurances (which seem socialist, but because the insurance is being sold at market cost, it is really capitalism)). We know that society in the future will be able to choose its own structure with accuracy, fluidity, and ease- or, it won’t. You can make a mental note of a bifurcation of the future here if you want. This just increases uncertainty around the expected payout of the rulings, it does not remove the notion of expectation altogether. Therefore, we know what society will look like in the future. Because the laws of economics make the future fixed, it already exists. Therefore, if one were to take an action knowing that the Reckoning Committee would look favorably upon it if it existed, the Reckoning Committee has an obligation to fulfill the ruling it would make if it were to exist in the future of that action because it already exists. Here is another way of looking at it. If the Reckoning Committee were to say “If anyone were to do ‘a’, I will give them ‘x’”, then for anyone who does ‘a’, the committee has an obligation to give them ‘x’. This is the committee sending a price signal to people. The price is x per a. Currently, we know what ‘x’ and ‘X’ (‘X’ is the set of all ‘x’) are (we know what the Reckoning Committee has to offer according to its charter), we know ‘a’ (what action we are thinking about performing), we know ‘A’ (all the actions that will be performed by humans from now until the Reckoning Committee which the committee will be ruling on). Thus, the Reckoning Committee’s decisions are a function f:AX, such that the benefit to society is greatest. Now, certain things, like the set of all actions that people can take between 1990 and 2050 is a little amorphous, but it is identifiable with enough accuracy to glean information about the function ‘f’. One of the properties of ‘f’ that increases the value to society is the reliability, with what reliability can a person performing act ‘a’ be expected to receive ‘x’. The greater the reliability of a representation for f, the greater the value to society. This is equivalent to accurate price signals. The direction of the derivative is clear, the more accurate, the better. Thus, the Reckoning Committee will make its payout function as representable by the past as possible. The question is, when do peripheral changes associated with an incremental increase in price signal accuracy cause other problems such that they offset the increase in value to society of the increased priced signal accuracy? It doesn’t (at least not significantly). It may seem like it in a sense if a mixed strategy is being used for rulings, but then the expected price changes from a number to a probability distribution. “Accuracy” refers to knowing as much as there is to know, not to know something exactly. Therefore, the function ‘f’ is reliable and does send accurate price signals. And since we know ‘A’ and ‘X’, we can approximate the function ‘f’. Dissecting the function ‘f’ yields all the price signals. Therefore, while the Reckoning Committee has not been formed yet, analysis of its future rulings (‘f’) gives us price signals about how we should act in the past. Furthermore, the Reckoning Committee is bound by rulings it will make to keep people confident that it will make them, because lack of confidence by the people means lack of authority on the part of the Reckoning Committee over the time period before it is created (which reduces ethical behavior because of the lack of repercussions). The first time a “War Crimes” tribunal got set up, I am sure the accused were a little bit surprised. A) it’s war, “all’s fair in love and war” B) The crimes weren’t committed in the countries of the people running the show. But know, if at the end of a war, a commander gets brought up on charges of launching missions with people in civilian clothing, everybody knows that that commander shouldn’t be surprised at being brought up on charges later on. It’s all about price signals, expectancy, and an obligation to perform as expected. Or, here is another way of looking at price signals sent in to the past. Suppose that when a ruling body gets created, the people creating it (the President for example) say, “we are going to give it authority ‘T’”. The body may not be formed yet, but if it doesn’t have authority ‘T’, there will be problems. The new body has obligations before it was formed. But those people who created the body (like the President) have clout because of their potential to make things happen. This is equivalent to power through the set of all possible future actions. In this case, it is the reliability of the persons creating the body that is borrowed to create the price signal. The promise of authority gives it authority. The promise of existence means it exists. And I promise you, the Reckoning Committee exists :)

KimWearsKim
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