How is wireheading trading freedom away if you are quite sure that it will do exactly what you want, and if you have some “abort button”? That sounds like the ultimate power.
Perhaps we are confusing what something looks like from the outside (it looks like the person is obviously immobilized and helpless) vs. what it feels like on the inside (the person gets exactly what they want).
Note that I would be wary about ever wireheading if there were other humans still around whose actions were not sufficiently predictable or constrained. That is because they could potentially try to mess with me while I am in my wireheaded state. I would only go into the wireheaded state if either I was the only human left and I had perfectly automated everything to take care of me while I was being wireheaded, or if there were other humans, but they were all safely under the control of an AI singleton who would keep them from screwing with me while I was being wireheaded.
How is wireheading trading freedom away if you are quite sure that it will do exactly what you want, and if you have some “abort button”? That sounds like the ultimate power.
Perhaps we are confusing what something looks like from the outside (it looks like the person is obviously immobilized and helpless) vs. what it feels like on the inside (the person gets exactly what they want).
Note that I would be wary about ever wireheading if there were other humans still around whose actions were not sufficiently predictable or constrained. That is because they could potentially try to mess with me while I am in my wireheaded state. I would only go into the wireheaded state if either I was the only human left and I had perfectly automated everything to take care of me while I was being wireheaded, or if there were other humans, but they were all safely under the control of an AI singleton who would keep them from screwing with me while I was being wireheaded.