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Comment by eatfish | Hacker News Reader

When the robots become self aware that guy from 1:25 has it coming.

I know this is (maybe?) a joke, but I've been seeing similar jokes everywhere. Self-aware AIs in the future will probably be much more rational that humans, utilizing game theory for every decision, and recognize that taking out vengeance on a human that had no ill intent on a non-self aware prototype would be a waste of energy and only bring about negative consequences.

I'm replying in seriousness because I too could imagine a world where this video was marked as a historical artifact by AGIs and recognized for its content.

Did you read "strategy of conflict"? It explains why irrational behaviour is the most optimal strategy sometimes.

I haven't read it, but from a quick glimpse on Amazon, it looks to be a book on game theory. Wouldn't a theory on strategy imply rational decision making? Could you expound on what you are referring to?

It is a viable strategy in many games to act so irrationally that other parties will go out of their way to accommodate you in a way that they would not otherwise.

A classic example is a game of chicken (at least, where something is on the line). Sure, it's irrational to run into the other person; but it's totally advantageous to convince the other party that you're willing to do so. At a certain point there's not much difference between a determined effort to look crazy and actual crazy behavior.

It gets even more interesting when the strategy is designed by a different actor or process than carries it out. For example, the people running a society might believe it to be advantageous for their group to look so defensive and prickly that no one will touch them; but in order to do so, they have to create a society that actually is quite irrational. Or, natural processes of evolution might favor organisms (well, genes that create organisms) that are actually quite irrational in their behavior, because that irrationality will change the behavior of other organisms.

The strategy of conflict broadly extends the game theory. It includes discussion of situations in which irrationality makes sense, and so on.

Vengeance has some game theoretically rational aspects though, in a tit-for-tat way. The threat of retaliation makes the other agents more likely to cooperate? However, not sure what the rational response would be to the problem with runaway mutual retaliation.

Think about it this way: That guy wasn't just some jerk on the street being mean to a robot. He's one of its creators, and he's knocking it over in order to make future robots better.

He'll be sentenced to hard labor at worst when the robots rise up.

The interesting thing about this seems like the opposite actually. There's something incredibly poignant about the fact that the robot will carry on attempting to pick up 'his' box forever without ever becoming angry or frustrated no matter how much the humans bully 'him'.

Also shown here, although without robots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNmJqRV7LOA&t=2m18s

How poignant is it for the HTTP server displaying you this page to continue responding to HTTP GET no matter how much the humans request it? It just doesn't have anthropomorphic shape so it will never be referred to as 'him'

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