User:IssaRice/AI safety/Comparison of terms related to agency

Term	Opposite
Agent
Optimizer, optimization process
consequentialist
expected utility maximizer
goal-directed, goal-based	act-based?
pseudoconsequentialist

parameters to check for:

• is it searching through a list of potential answers?
• does it have an explicit model of the world? i.e. it has counterfactuals (see drescher on subactivation)
• can it be modeled as having a utility function?
• can we take an intentional stance toward it? i.e., is it useful (so far as predicting what it will do is concerned) to model it as having intentions?
• is it solving some sort of optimization problem? (but what counts as an optimization problem?)
• origin: was it itself produced by some sort of optimization process?
• does it hit a small target, out of a large space of possibilities?
• how many elements in the space of possibilities is it instantiating?

examples to check against:

• humans
• evolution/natural selection
• bottlecap
• RL system playing Pong without an explicit model
• tool AGI/CAIS
• task AGI
• KANSI
• targeting system on a rocket
• single-step filter
• chess-playing algorithm that just does tree search (e.g. alpha-beta pruning algorithm)
• a simple feed-forward neural network (e.g. one that recognizes MNIST digits)
• a thermostat
• a plant