Perversity is “a deliberate desire to behave in an unreasonable or unacceptable way; contrariness.”
Fictional genies seek out ways to trick the requester on purpose, just to prove a point about rash wishes. The other kind of perverse agent doesn’t act contrarily for the sake of being contrary. They act exactly to achieve the goal and nothing else; it’s just that they go against implicit goals as a side effect.
Does the prevalence of fictional genies and the like influence your feelings on perverse instantiation?
Of course, there are two kinds of perversity.
Perversity is “a deliberate desire to behave in an unreasonable or unacceptable way; contrariness.”
Fictional genies seek out ways to trick the requester on purpose, just to prove a point about rash wishes. The other kind of perverse agent doesn’t act contrarily for the sake of being contrary. They act exactly to achieve the goal and nothing else; it’s just that they go against implicit goals as a side effect.