There’s already a good answer to the question, but I’ll add a note.
Different people value different things, and so are willing to expend different amounts of effort to achieve different ends. As a result, even rational agents may not all achieve the same ends because they care about different things.
Thus we can have two rational agents, A and B. A cares a lot about finding a mate and not much else. B cares a lot about making money and not much else. A will be willing to invest more effort into things like staying in shape to the extent that helps A find a mate. B will invest a lot less in staying in shape and more in other things to the extent that’s the better tradeoff to make a lot of money.
Rationality doesn’t prescribe the outcome, just some of the means. Yes, some outcomes are convergent for many concerns, so many agents end up having the same instrumental concerns even if they have different ultimate concerns (e.g. power seeking is a common instrumental goal), but without understanding what an agent cares about you can’t judge how well they are succeeding since success must be measures against their goals.
There’s already a good answer to the question, but I’ll add a note.
Different people value different things, and so are willing to expend different amounts of effort to achieve different ends. As a result, even rational agents may not all achieve the same ends because they care about different things.
Thus we can have two rational agents, A and B. A cares a lot about finding a mate and not much else. B cares a lot about making money and not much else. A will be willing to invest more effort into things like staying in shape to the extent that helps A find a mate. B will invest a lot less in staying in shape and more in other things to the extent that’s the better tradeoff to make a lot of money.
Rationality doesn’t prescribe the outcome, just some of the means. Yes, some outcomes are convergent for many concerns, so many agents end up having the same instrumental concerns even if they have different ultimate concerns (e.g. power seeking is a common instrumental goal), but without understanding what an agent cares about you can’t judge how well they are succeeding since success must be measures against their goals.