Incentives

TagLast edit: Oct 14, 2021, 2:27 PM by Vladimir_Nesov

An Incentive is a motivating factor, such as monetary reward, the risk of legal sanctions, or social feedback. Many systems are best understood by looking at the incentives of the people with power over them.

Inadequate Equilibria covers many problems that arise when there are poor incentives.

Related Pages: Game Theory, Mechanism Design, Moloch, Moral Mazes

An Equilibrium of No Free Energy

Eliezer YudkowskyOct 31, 2017, 9:27 PM

140 points

106 votes

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50 comments27 min readLW link

Reinforcement Via Giving People Cookies

ScrewtapeNov 15, 2023, 4:34 AM

70 points

35 votes

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9 comments6 min readLW link

The Mirror Trap

Cameron BergJun 6, 2025, 10:30 PM

94 points

52 votes

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13 comments4 min readLW link

Inadequacy and Modesty

Eliezer YudkowskyOct 28, 2017, 9:51 PM

133 points

115 votes

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80 comments18 min readLW link

Meditations On Moloch

Scott AlexanderJul 30, 2014, 4:00 AM

203 points

130 votes

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10 comments47 min readLW link

Against Arguments For Exploitation

blackstampedeOct 6, 2022, 1:58 AM

18 points

11 votes

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8 comments7 min readLW link

Asymmetric Justice

ZviApr 25, 2019, 4:00 PM

239 points

127 votes

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105 comments5 min readLW link 2 reviews

(thezvi.wordpress.com)

[Question] Framing Practicum: Incentive

aysajanAug 27, 2021, 7:22 PM

39 points

13 votes

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6 comments3 min readLW link

Accountability Sinks

Martin SustrikApr 22, 2025, 5:00 AM

443 points

234 votes

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58 comments15 min readLW link

(250bpm.substack.com)

Power Buys You Distance From The Crime

ElizabethAug 2, 2019, 8:50 PM

214 points

101 votes

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75 comments7 min readLW link 1 review

(acesounderglass.com)

Explaining British Naval Dominance During the Age of Sail

Arjun PanicksseryMar 28, 2025, 5:47 AM

206 points

126 votes

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16 comments4 min readLW link

(arjunpanickssery.substack.com)

Fertility Rate Roundup #1

ZviFeb 27, 2023, 1:30 PM

52 points

32 votes

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20 comments11 min readLW link

(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Some (problematic) aesthetics of what constitutes good work in academia

Steven ByrnesMar 11, 2024, 5:47 PM

149 points

70 votes

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12 comments12 min readLW link

American College Admissions Doesn’t Need to Be So Competitive

Arjun PanicksseryApr 7, 2025, 5:35 PM

48 points

27 votes

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20 comments6 min readLW link

(arjunpanickssery.substack.com)

Player of Games

Jacob FalkovichAug 29, 2018, 9:26 PM

67 points

30 votes

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3 comments12 min readLW link

Living in an Inadequate World

Eliezer YudkowskyNov 9, 2017, 9:23 PM

97 points

76 votes

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47 comments20 min readLW link

[Question] What are some real life Inadequate Equilibria?

Eli TyreJan 29, 2021, 12:17 PM

50 points

21 votes

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63 comments3 min readLW link

A framework for thinking about AI power-seeking

Joe CarlsmithJul 24, 2024, 10:41 PM

62 points

22 votes

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15 comments16 min readLW link

Incentive compatibility and the Revelation Principle

badgerMay 3, 2014, 1:38 PM

40 points

27 votes

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7 comments6 min readLW link

Will Jesus Christ return in an election year?

Eric NeymanMar 24, 2025, 4:50 PM

407 points

243 votes

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59 comments4 min readLW link

(ericneyman.wordpress.com)

Pay Risk Evaluators in Cash, Not Equity

Adam SchollSep 7, 2024, 2:37 AM

222 points

89 votes

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19 comments1 min readLW link

Explaining Impact Markets

Saul MunnJan 31, 2024, 9:51 AM

95 points

36 votes

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2 comments3 min readLW link

(www.brasstacks.blog)

Who Aligns the Alignment Researchers?

Ben SmithMar 5, 2023, 11:22 PM

48 points

20 votes

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0 comments11 min readLW link

Fertility Roundup #3

ZviApr 2, 2024, 2:50 PM

21 points

16 votes

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11 comments31 min readLW link

(thezvi.wordpress.com)

I discovered LessWrong… during Good Heart Week

identity.keyApr 7, 2022, 1:22 PM

52 points

37 votes

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12 comments3 min readLW link

The 6D effect: When companies take risks, one email can be very powerful.

scasperNov 4, 2023, 8:08 PM

287 points

151 votes

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42 comments3 min readLW link

Notes on Shame

David GrossNov 2, 2021, 4:33 AM

22 points

14 votes

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6 comments18 min readLW link

Science advances one funeral at a time

Cameron Berg, Judd Rosenblatt, Diogo de Lucena and Trent Hodgeson

Nov 1, 2024, 11:06 PM

100 points

46 votes

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9 comments2 min readLW link

Feature request: voting buttons at the bottom?

Oliver SourbutJun 24, 2022, 2:41 PM

71 points

32 votes

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12 comments1 min readLW link

Good Heart Week: Extending the Experiment

Ben PaceApr 2, 2022, 7:13 AM

97 points

58 votes

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92 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] Will the Bitcoin fee market actually work?

TropicalFruitMar 11, 2023, 12:02 AM

10 points

12 votes

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6 comments1 min readLW link

Encouraging New Users To Bet On Their Beliefs

YafahEdelmanApr 18, 2023, 10:10 PM

49 points

26 votes

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8 comments2 min readLW link

Trying to Keep the Garden Well

Tobias HJan 16, 2022, 5:42 AM

99 points

63 votes

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5 comments1 min readLW link

A YouTube Video Will Probably Never Help You Quit YouTube

boundary_conditionAug 14, 2025, 12:59 AM

26 points

10 votes

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11 comments10 min readLW link

Reward Hacking from a Causal Perspective

tom4everitt, Francis Rhys Ward, sbenthall, James Fox, mattmacdermott and RyanCarey

Jul 21, 2023, 6:27 PM

29 points

9 votes

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6 comments7 min readLW link

Question 4: Implementing the control proposals

Cameron BergFeb 13, 2022, 5:12 PM

6 points

6 votes

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2 comments5 min readLW link

Virtue taxation

DentosalJul 12, 2024, 2:56 PM

9 points

7 votes

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1 comment2 min readLW link

Buying a house and making friends in unexpected places

dominicqMar 28, 2021, 2:35 PM

28 points

12 votes

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4 comments1 min readLW link

Progress on Causal Influence Diagrams

tom4everittJun 30, 2021, 3:34 PM

73 points

27 votes

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6 comments9 min readLW link

Incentives from a causal perspective

tom4everitt, James Fox, RyanCarey, mattmacdermott, sbenthall and Jonathan Richens

Jul 10, 2023, 5:16 PM

27 points

10 votes

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0 comments6 min readLW link

Signaling Virtuous Victimhood as Indicators of Dark Triad Personalities

Ben SmithAug 26, 2021, 7:18 PM

18 points

12 votes

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3 comments1 min readLW link

(mlpol.net)

Duty to rescue / Non-assistance à personne en danger

Thomas SepulchreSep 13, 2023, 9:49 AM

15 points

15 votes

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5 comments3 min readLW link

Examining Batenka’s Legal Personhood Framework for Models

Stephen MartinMay 14, 2025, 10:15 AM

5 points

4 votes

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4 comments7 min readLW link

[Question] Framing Practicum: Selection Incentive

aysajanSep 2, 2021, 8:26 PM

14 points

4 votes

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6 comments3 min readLW link

The commercial incentive to intentionally train AI to deceive us

Derek M. JonesDec 29, 2022, 11:30 AM

5 points

4 votes

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1 comment4 min readLW link

(shape-of-code.com)

How my school gamed the stats

Srdjan MileticFeb 20, 2021, 7:23 PM

83 points

46 votes

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26 comments4 min readLW link

Tal Yarkoni: No, it’s not The Incentives—it’s you

Zack_M_DavisJun 11, 2019, 7:09 AM

90 points

43 votes

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119 comments1 min readLW link 4 reviews

(www.talyarkoni.org)

[Question] What is to be done? (About the profit motive)

Connor BarberSep 8, 2023, 7:27 PM

1 point

9 votes

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21 comments1 min readLW link

plex Jan 7, 2021, 9:01 PM
1 point
1 vote
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Should most of Inadequate Equilibria be tagged with this?
- Ruby Jan 8, 2021, 2:49 AM
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  Parent
  Possibly? I’m not sure if that’s helpful or not. I think if there’s a description for this wiki-tag, it should mention Inadequate Equilibria as a major resource.