I’m sure someone else can explain this better than me, but: As I understand it, a util understood timelessly (rather than like money, which there are valid reasons to discount because it can be invested, lost, revalued, etc. over time) builds into how it’s counted all preferences, including preferences that interact with time. If you get 10 utils, you get 10 utils, full stop. These aren’t delivered to your door in a plain brown wrapper such that you can put them in an interest-bearing account. They’re improvements in the four-dimensional state of the entire universe over all time, that you value at 10 utils. If you get 11 utils, you get 11 utils, and it doesn’t really matter when you get them. Sure, if you get them 20 years from now, then they don’t cover specific events over the next 20 years that could stand improvement. But it’s still worth eleven utils, not ten. If you value things that happen in the next 20 years more highly than things that happen later, then utils according to your utility function will reflect that, that’s all.
That (timeless utils) is a perfectly sensible convention about what utility ought to mean. But, having adopted that convention, we are left with (at least) two questions:
Do I (in 2011) derive a few percent more utility from an African family having clean water in 2012 than I do from an equivalent family having clean water in 2013?
If I do derive more utility from the first alternative, am I making a moral error in having a utility function that acts that way?
I would answer yes to the first question. As I understand it, Eliezer would answer yes to the second question and would answer no to the first, were he in my shoes. I would claim that Eliezer is making a moral error in both judgments.
Do I (in 2011) derive a few percent more utility from an African family having clean water in 2012 than I do from an equivalent family having clean water in 2013?
Do you (in the years 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014) derive different relative utilities for these conditions? If so, it seems you have a problem.
I’m sorry. I don’t know what is meant by utility derived in 2014 from an event in 2012. I understand that the whole point of my assigning utilities in 2014 is to guide myself in making decisions in 2014. But no decision I make in 2014 can have an effect on events in 2012. So, from a decision-theoretic viewpoint, it doesn’t matter how I evaluate the utilities of past events. They are additive constants (same in all decision branches) in any computation of utility, and hence are irrelevant.
Or did you mean to ask about different relative utilities in the years before 2012? Yes, I understand that if I don’t use exponential discounting, then I risk inconsistencies.
I’m sure someone else can explain this better than me, but: As I understand it, a util understood timelessly (rather than like money, which there are valid reasons to discount because it can be invested, lost, revalued, etc. over time) builds into how it’s counted all preferences, including preferences that interact with time. If you get 10 utils, you get 10 utils, full stop. These aren’t delivered to your door in a plain brown wrapper such that you can put them in an interest-bearing account. They’re improvements in the four-dimensional state of the entire universe over all time, that you value at 10 utils. If you get 11 utils, you get 11 utils, and it doesn’t really matter when you get them. Sure, if you get them 20 years from now, then they don’t cover specific events over the next 20 years that could stand improvement. But it’s still worth eleven utils, not ten. If you value things that happen in the next 20 years more highly than things that happen later, then utils according to your utility function will reflect that, that’s all.
That (timeless utils) is a perfectly sensible convention about what utility ought to mean. But, having adopted that convention, we are left with (at least) two questions:
Do I (in 2011) derive a few percent more utility from an African family having clean water in 2012 than I do from an equivalent family having clean water in 2013?
If I do derive more utility from the first alternative, am I making a moral error in having a utility function that acts that way?
I would answer yes to the first question. As I understand it, Eliezer would answer yes to the second question and would answer no to the first, were he in my shoes. I would claim that Eliezer is making a moral error in both judgments.
Do you (in the years 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014) derive different relative utilities for these conditions? If so, it seems you have a problem.
I’m sorry. I don’t know what is meant by utility derived in 2014 from an event in 2012. I understand that the whole point of my assigning utilities in 2014 is to guide myself in making decisions in 2014. But no decision I make in 2014 can have an effect on events in 2012. So, from a decision-theoretic viewpoint, it doesn’t matter how I evaluate the utilities of past events. They are additive constants (same in all decision branches) in any computation of utility, and hence are irrelevant.
Or did you mean to ask about different relative utilities in the years before 2012? Yes, I understand that if I don’t use exponential discounting, then I risk inconsistencies.