I’m surprised at the lukewarm response this is getting. This has the bones of a classic. With some superficial human cleanup, it could be in the top 10% of fiction stories to have appeared on this site.
The topic plays to the LLM’s strengths because it’s mostly a series of funny examples, and LLMs have been superhuman at humor from day 1.
A big opportunity was missed in the reason why the Ministry needs a complainer role. We’re told that the Ministry needs to hear regular objections to calibrate its understanding of what’s objectionable, but then it doesn’t make sense why it employs someone whose objections are so silly. Much better would have been for the Ministry to have discovered that there is a deep instinct in some people (or the collective human psyche?) to complain. Since it seeks to maximize total satisfaction, it seems like it can’t win: if it implements path A, complainers will demand path B, and if it implements path B, the same complainers will demand path A. But then it devises this complainer role that has no effect on the governance of society while still satisfying the human need to complain.
The same plot would have worked perfectly with this premise: After a lifetime of complaining, the complaining itself becomes a satisfying labor of love, which means the complaints are no longer heartfelt. As a result the old complainer is replaced with a comically petulant child who complains about everything and means it.
This version would pick up a real ideological payload too, subtly criticizing the anti-automation and anti-wireheading types.
I’m surprised at the lukewarm response this is getting. This has the bones of a classic. With some superficial human cleanup, it could be in the top 10% of fiction stories to have appeared on this site.
The topic plays to the LLM’s strengths because it’s mostly a series of funny examples, and LLMs have been superhuman at humor from day 1.
A big opportunity was missed in the reason why the Ministry needs a complainer role. We’re told that the Ministry needs to hear regular objections to calibrate its understanding of what’s objectionable, but then it doesn’t make sense why it employs someone whose objections are so silly. Much better would have been for the Ministry to have discovered that there is a deep instinct in some people (or the collective human psyche?) to complain. Since it seeks to maximize total satisfaction, it seems like it can’t win: if it implements path A, complainers will demand path B, and if it implements path B, the same complainers will demand path A. But then it devises this complainer role that has no effect on the governance of society while still satisfying the human need to complain.
The same plot would have worked perfectly with this premise: After a lifetime of complaining, the complaining itself becomes a satisfying labor of love, which means the complaints are no longer heartfelt. As a result the old complainer is replaced with a comically petulant child who complains about everything and means it.
This version would pick up a real ideological payload too, subtly criticizing the anti-automation and anti-wireheading types.