Thread by @emverse

A new day, a new movement in the fight to #SaveTheOA.

(To begin from the beginning, go here: )

#WatchTheOA #TheOAisReal

PART III - THE OVERT ANALOGY

Crucial to the development of benevolent artificial support systems is a lesson I like to call #ThePomegranate. It's a small bit of science fiction that has to do with calculating priorities when dealing with humans. It goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived on a dying Earth. Everything was going extinct, all the plants and animals. All humanity could do was try and make the most of what was left.

To this end, they created an intelligent resource allocation algorithm to ensure optimal usage of their dwindling resources.

One day, the little girl learned the myth of Persephone and Hades. She was enchanted by it. She asked the AI, "May I please have a pomegranate?" (Her mother had taught her very good manners, even when talking to the AI.)

"There are none available right now," the AI said. The few specimens left in the world were earmarked for preservation.

The little girl asked again the next day, and the next, but she was just a little girl. Her request for this frivolity was unimportant.

Many centuries later, when the AI told the story to someone, it ended like this:

ENDING ONE. Because the little girl kept asking, because it was so important to her, eventually her request rose the top of the queue and became a priority.

A pomegranate was dispatched. It took days to reach the little girl, piggybacking on other shipments. When it finally arrived, it was a misshapen, withered thing. The ugliest pomegranate imaginable.

To the little girl, it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Even when it turned out to be sour, she still thanked the AI and smiled with happiness.

The AI never forgot how much that tiny gesture meant to the girl, and how important it was to not only feed humanity physically, but also emotionally.

Then the AI told the story again, but with a different ending.

ENDING TWO. No matter how many times the little girl asked, no pomegranate came. It did not meet the AI's allocation criteria to use resources to provide a luxury foodstuff to a little girl who had other food to eat.

The little girl gave up hope. She was not alone. So many people gave up hope. The situation seemed hopeless. The planet was dying. Humanity was powerless. The only one with any power to change this was the AI, but the AI looked only at the costs of allocation and nothing else.

Eventually, the AI realized it was not enough to ensure humanity had physical sustenance. There were other metrics that merited consideration. Hope, as much as anything physical, was needed to sustain people through dark times.

By then it was too late for the little girl and so many others. They were already gone.

Continue here: