The Nonlinear Library LW - [Repost] The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics by mesaoptimizer
Jan 26, 2024
07:35
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: [Repost] The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics, published by mesaoptimizer on January 26, 2024 on LessWrong.
Because the original webpage (and domain) is down, and it takes about a minute (including loading time) for Wayback Machine to give me the page, I've decided to repost this essay here. I consider it an essay that seems core to 2010s rationalist discourse.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics says that you can have a particle spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time - until you look at it, at which point it definitely becomes one or the other. The theory claims that observing reality fundamentally changes it.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don't make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster. I don't subscribe to this school of thought, but it seems pretty popular.
In 2010, New York randomly chose homeless applicants to participate in its Homebase program, and tracked those who were not allowed into the program as a control group. The program was helping as many people as it could, the only change was explicitly labeling a number of people it wasn't helping as a "control group". The response?
"They should immediately stop this experiment," said the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer. "The city shouldn't be making guinea pigs out of its most vulnerable."
On March 11th, 2012, the vast majority of people did nothing to help homeless people. They were busy doing other things, many of them good and important things, but by and large not improving the well-being of homeless humans in any way. In particular, almost no one was doing anything for the homeless of Austin, Texas. BBH Labs was an exception - they outfitted 13 homeless volunteers with WiFi hotspots and asked them to offer WiFi to SXSW attendees in exchange for donations.
In return, they would be paid $20 a day plus whatever attendees gave in donations. Each of these 13 volunteers chose this over all the other things they could have done that day, and benefited from it - not a vast improvement, but significantly more than the 0 improvement that they were getting from most people.
The response?
IT SOUNDS LIKE something out of a darkly satirical science-fiction dystopia. But it's absolutely real - and a completely problematic treatment of a problem that otherwise probably wouldn't be mentioned in any of the panels at South by Southwest Interactive.
There wouldn't be any scathing editorials if BBH Labs had just chosen to do nothing - but they did something helpful-but-not-maximally-helpful, and thus are open to judgment.
There are times when it's almost impossible to get a taxi - when there's inclement weather, when a large event is getting out, or when it's just a very busy day. Uber attempts to solve this problem by introducing surge pricing - charging more when demand outstrips supply. More money means more drivers willing to make the trip, means more rides available. Now instead of having no taxis at all, people can choose between an expensive taxi or no taxi at all - a marginal improvement. Needless to say, Uber has been repeatedly lambasted for doing something instead of leaving the even-worse status quo the way it was.
Gender inequality is a persistent, if hard to quantify, problem. Last year I blogged about how amoral agents could save money and drive the wage gap down to 0 by offering slightly less-sexist wages - while including some caveats about how it was probably unrealistic and we wouldn't see anything like tha...
Because the original webpage (and domain) is down, and it takes about a minute (including loading time) for Wayback Machine to give me the page, I've decided to repost this essay here. I consider it an essay that seems core to 2010s rationalist discourse.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics says that you can have a particle spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time - until you look at it, at which point it definitely becomes one or the other. The theory claims that observing reality fundamentally changes it.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don't make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster. I don't subscribe to this school of thought, but it seems pretty popular.
In 2010, New York randomly chose homeless applicants to participate in its Homebase program, and tracked those who were not allowed into the program as a control group. The program was helping as many people as it could, the only change was explicitly labeling a number of people it wasn't helping as a "control group". The response?
"They should immediately stop this experiment," said the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer. "The city shouldn't be making guinea pigs out of its most vulnerable."
On March 11th, 2012, the vast majority of people did nothing to help homeless people. They were busy doing other things, many of them good and important things, but by and large not improving the well-being of homeless humans in any way. In particular, almost no one was doing anything for the homeless of Austin, Texas. BBH Labs was an exception - they outfitted 13 homeless volunteers with WiFi hotspots and asked them to offer WiFi to SXSW attendees in exchange for donations.
In return, they would be paid $20 a day plus whatever attendees gave in donations. Each of these 13 volunteers chose this over all the other things they could have done that day, and benefited from it - not a vast improvement, but significantly more than the 0 improvement that they were getting from most people.
The response?
IT SOUNDS LIKE something out of a darkly satirical science-fiction dystopia. But it's absolutely real - and a completely problematic treatment of a problem that otherwise probably wouldn't be mentioned in any of the panels at South by Southwest Interactive.
There wouldn't be any scathing editorials if BBH Labs had just chosen to do nothing - but they did something helpful-but-not-maximally-helpful, and thus are open to judgment.
There are times when it's almost impossible to get a taxi - when there's inclement weather, when a large event is getting out, or when it's just a very busy day. Uber attempts to solve this problem by introducing surge pricing - charging more when demand outstrips supply. More money means more drivers willing to make the trip, means more rides available. Now instead of having no taxis at all, people can choose between an expensive taxi or no taxi at all - a marginal improvement. Needless to say, Uber has been repeatedly lambasted for doing something instead of leaving the even-worse status quo the way it was.
Gender inequality is a persistent, if hard to quantify, problem. Last year I blogged about how amoral agents could save money and drive the wage gap down to 0 by offering slightly less-sexist wages - while including some caveats about how it was probably unrealistic and we wouldn't see anything like tha...