Episode Details

I was thinking about Habryka's article on Putin's CEV, but I am posting my response here, because the original article is already 3 weeks old.

I am not sure how exactly a person's CEV is defined. "If we knew everything and could self-modify" seems potentially sensitive to the precise chronological order of "realizing things" and "self-modification".

Like, imagine Hitler getting the godlike powers of knowledge and self-control. If he gets the perfect knowledge of economy, sociology and psychology first, he could go like: "Oh, now I realize that the things I blamed on the Jews are actually caused by something else. How embarrassing. No more anti-semitism, but I better erase everyone's memory first."

But it is also possible that he gets the self-control first, and he realizes that there is such a thing as value drift, and thinks: "Oh my, this could accidentally make me more similar to the Jews. I better hardcode the Nazi ideals in myself immediately, and also give myself blond hair and blue eyes." And using the superior knowledge, he hardcodes the Nazi values in himself so that they are reflectively stable and survive all updates.

So, Hitler's CEV seems to depend on the technical [...]

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First published:
May 6th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FvERMXkaobQvdjS4q/many-individual-cevs-are-probably-quite-bad

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.