Introduction

Suppose that at every point in time, we take the action $a$ given by:

{argmax}_{a \in A} E [U | a, O b s]

That is, we want to choose the action $a$ in the set of possible actions $A$ which maximizes ( $a r g m a x$ ) the expected ( $E [. . .]$ ) utility ( $U$ ) in the world given that action ( $a$ ) and given all our observations and models about the world ( $O b s$ ).

In the next sections, I will give a brief example, analyze each of the parts in some detail as they relate to altruism, flesh them out, and then point out where I think some EA organizations and myself fall into according to this model.

I hesitated for a long while about posting this piece, because I thought that it might be perceived as too basic or unsophisticated, and because I'd been working on a related but much more complicated model. And indeed, the below model is basic. However, I've found that it does contribute to my clarity of thought, which I think is valuable.

A brief example

If your utility function $U$ is “eat as much ice cream as possible”, then at every point you’d want to choose the action a among the set of possible actions A available to you (buy ice cream, invest in the stock market, work to get more money, etc.) which leads to the most ice cream eaten by you, given all you know about the world.

The moving parts in our model, and what it means to optimize them, are:

Our utility function $U$ . In this case, this is “eat as many ice creams as possible”. Fine-tuning this utility function might involve better defining what an ice-cream is, and why eating them is valuable to us.
- Concrete example: Maybe you reflect on the meaning of ice-cream and decide that what you really care about is actually the feeling of contentment while eating ice cream in good company, maximizing sugar intake, or something else.
The optimal action a, and the set of actions A available to you. Fine-tuning them might involve gaining access to larger or better sets of actions.
- Concrete example: You make sure to have better grades in school so that your parents don’t ground you and limit your ranges of action.
The expected value function $E$ . Fine-tuning this might involve becoming a better forecaster and tracking the past record of information sources.
- Concrete example: You hire a group of superforecasters to predict inflation; the higher the inflation, the less ice-cream you will be able to later buy with yo

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Vantage Points