Comment by zoogeny

2 years ago

Tangentially, I am reminded of the essay "The Problem with Music" by Steve Albini [1]. There is a narrative in this essay about A&R scouts and how they make promises to bands. The whole point is that the A&R scout comes across as trustworthy because they believe what they are promising. However, once the deal is signed and money starts rolling in, the A&R guy disappears and a whole new set of people show up. They claim to have no knowledge of any promises made and point to the contracts that were signed.

In some sense, corporations are already a kind of entity that has the properties we are considering. They are proxies for human agents. What is interesting is that they are a many-to-one kind of abstraction where they are proxying many human agents.

It is curious to consider that most powerful AIs will be under the control of corporations (for the foreseeable future). That means they will be proxying multiple human agents. In some sense, AI will become the most effective A&R man that ever was for every conceivable contract.