Of course, wizards in the modern world depend on the structures that king power built, and not having those structures makes wizards way, way less useful than in the modern era.
More generally, the power to manipulate social reality is a hugely powerful ability, even if there are real constraints, and I generally think king power is less fake than you do (though relative to wizard power, king power makes it easier to produce ideas/tasks/materials/goods that don’t work, due to the lack of obvious verification and worse feedback loops, due to the adversarial context).
In particular, it can bring you the technological progress necessary to solve problems, even if it’s not a direct cause.
Management, delegation and social skills are very, very valuable and not fake.
In relation to AGI, I basically agree with Alex Mallen’s comment here that king power is going to matter a lot if you want wizard power (except in very, very fast takeoff scenarios):
I do think king/social power has a habit to be more fictional/constrained than wizard power, because it’s harder to verify in social settings, often deliberately so, but I’d contest the claim that king power is universally/widely fictional, especially in practice.
Of course, wizards in the modern world depend on the structures that king power built, and not having those structures makes wizards way, way less useful than in the modern era.
More generally, the power to manipulate social reality is a hugely powerful ability, even if there are real constraints, and I generally think king power is less fake than you do (though relative to wizard power, king power makes it easier to produce ideas/tasks/materials/goods that don’t work, due to the lack of obvious verification and worse feedback loops, due to the adversarial context).
In particular, it can bring you the technological progress necessary to solve problems, even if it’s not a direct cause.
Management, delegation and social skills are very, very valuable and not fake.
In relation to AGI, I basically agree with Alex Mallen’s comment here that king power is going to matter a lot if you want wizard power (except in very, very fast takeoff scenarios):
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Wg6ptgi2DupFuAnXG/orienting-toward-wizard-power#A3zuXoEiXYjET5ggr
I do think king/social power has a habit to be more fictional/constrained than wizard power, because it’s harder to verify in social settings, often deliberately so, but I’d contest the claim that king power is universally/widely fictional, especially in practice.