[FRIAM] Free Will in the Atlantic

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Agency is not the referent. I'm arguing that it's the perception of agency that's being pointed to by "free will". I forget where this point was made, now. But somewhere in this thread someone posted an article that pointed out "good" behavior increased when subjects were primed to believe they had free will. And "bad" behavior was more prevalent when they were primed to doubt free will. The important part, though, was the idea that imputation of free will onto others (aka empathy) was not necessarily beneficial. It may be good for us to believe in our own free will, but to doubt others' free will.

So, the operative objective function is one's own sense of one's own self. That's the target. 

Until we can measure the analog (robot/computer) in the same way we can measure the referent (people), e.g. by asking them whether they feel they have free will, we'll be comparing apples to oranges.


On 4/5/21 8:43 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Glen writes:
> 
> "Instantiating artifacts that exhibit the markers for an interoceptive sense of agency ("free will") is obviously difficult."
> 
> I don't see how agency itself is particularly hard.  Some executive process needs to model and predict an environment, and it needs to interact with that environment.   Is it hard in a way different from making an adaptable robot?   Waymo, Tesla, and others are doing this.

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