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Consider the Lucas Critique [1]. To paraphrase, the general idea is that it is natural for organizations to seek to optimize their ability to navigate any regu

by tmuir 9y ago

Consider the Lucas Critique [1]. To paraphrase, the general idea is that it is natural for organizations to seek to optimize their ability to navigate any regulation, or any impediment to maximizing their profits, or otherwise maximally seeking their ultimate goal. Its advice is that it is counterproductive to try to reign in the behavior of sophisticated organizations with exact targets of compliance, as you are simply giving those very organizations a blueprint for the necessary optimizations for both minimal, often semantic compliance, and a continuation of the actual behavior the original regulation intended to curb. The application to this subject is the very idea that companies such as this are motivated to optimize their methodology of convincing judges or whatever ultimate adjudicator exists, to exonerate their clients. I don't see any indication of Promise being a nonprofit, so we have to assume their primary goal is in fact profit. Bad actors shouldn't be able to throw money at the optimization of skirting the law. To the extent that Promise is successful, that conclusion can and will be easily drawn to great effect. Will every employee of Promise need to convince their state bar association of their character and fitness? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique

Cyberdog 9y ago
I think that your heart is in the right place, but objecting to something like Promise just because they have a profit motive is letting perfect be the enemy of good. As I said above, if this system means a single person is able to be working and taking care of their family rather than sitting in a cold concrete box, a great justice has been done to the world, regardless of the motivations of those responsible.
- tmuir 9y ago
  I think your optimism has a fighting chance of being mirrored in reality at some point in the future. I don't object to the idea of Promise. I object to absolutist statements claiming that companies who plan to do great good by carrying out operations that could easily be subverted to great harm are unequivocally a net positive. If what you're saying actually comes to pass, I'll celebrate it. But to gas light the devil's advocates who simply want to ensure that this isn't another group of Elizabeth Holmes style charlatans, is transparent and fully deserving of being called out as grade A, corn fed bullshit. I can almost hear the raspiness in your voice as you describe these situations. There's a Sean Colvin song playing in the background. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. How will you deftly strum my heart strings if its an objectively guilty rapist who is allowed to take care of their family, rather than sit in the cold concrete box where other possible victims are safe from him?
CREwert 9y ago
Promise isnt (yet) working with convicted clients. This is purely a pre-trial intervention, as they keep saying. So supposing that they will be trying to exonerate their clients is a red herring. Supposing that their motives are pure profit is extra cynical; there are plenty of organizations in the world that do good and still earn a little money. Since this is all pre-trial, the incentives for Promise are to ensure that they have the best rates possible of a) showing up for trial and b) not committing extra offenses until then. The only danger I see is the possibility that they would over-select candidates and get too many who use this as a way to dodge their trials or commit more crimes. Since either of these harm their ability to do business, I would think you agree that they are incented to minimize those events. I dont think Lucas applies; its about the weakness of regulations to control actors. This is a new organization that aims to offer an alternative for existing government actors.
- tmuir 9y ago
  This is all happy-path talk. We'll do everything right forever in all cases no matter what, talk. I'm concerned about what their plan is for if and when they find out that the hypothesis that is their most prominent, and most marketable use case has been falsified, yet it turns out that some other market they hadn't even considered at the start is absolutely printing money for them, even if it represents significant mission creep from keeping poor people out of jail. Supposing that their motives are profit driven is putting two and two together. We're currently in the middle of YC demo days. This very post constitutes a prong in their launch strategy. Claiming that profit motive and the motive to do good in the world are mutually exclusive is the true red herring here. It is separately egregious, because it also aims to frame my argument as wanting them to fail in any related venture. As I've said all along, I'd simply like to know what, besides blind trust, should we lean on, to ensure that a private company, who will undoubtedly have lots of reasons to want to keep its methodologies a secret, will be honest and forthcoming in the better than average chance that their favored marketing use case doesn't end up as what is truly sustaining their business. After all, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The answer to people claiming you might be a bad actor is go the extra mile, and do things and con men cannot, such as provide meaningful context, and coherent arguments that actually address your skeptics' questions. The Lucas Critique is actually one of those theories that has been put forth in many permutations, such as the Cobra Effect, Campbells Law, and Goodhart's Law. In plain english, its just saying that if you want to prevent some behavior in others, giving clear, explicit, comprehensive targets of what it means to comply is counterproductive, because those targets are always an imperfect proxy for the actual behavior you wish to curb, and "compliance" can nearly always be achieved to the letter of the law, while not in the spirit of the law. It applies to social theory in general, which is the context of Campbell's Law.

by tmuir 9y ago

Cyberdog 9y ago

I think that your heart is in the right place, but objecting to something like Promise just because they have a profit motive is letting perfect be the enemy of good. As I said above, if this system means a single person is able to be working and taking care of their family rather than sitting in a cold concrete box, a great justice has been done to the world, regardless of the motivations of those responsible.

tmuir 9y ago
I think your optimism has a fighting chance of being mirrored in reality at some point in the future. I don't object to the idea of Promise. I object to absolutist statements claiming that companies who plan to do great good by carrying out operations that could easily be subverted to great harm are unequivocally a net positive. If what you're saying actually comes to pass, I'll celebrate it. But to gas light the devil's advocates who simply want to ensure that this isn't another group of Elizabeth Holmes style charlatans, is transparent and fully deserving of being called out as grade A, corn fed bullshit. I can almost hear the raspiness in your voice as you describe these situations. There's a Sean Colvin song playing in the background. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. How will you deftly strum my heart strings if its an objectively guilty rapist who is allowed to take care of their family, rather than sit in the cold concrete box where other possible victims are safe from him?

CREwert 9y ago

Promise isnt (yet) working with convicted clients. This is purely a pre-trial intervention, as they keep saying. So supposing that they will be trying to exonerate their clients is a red herring. Supposing that their motives are pure profit is extra cynical; there are plenty of organizations in the world that do good and still earn a little money. Since this is all pre-trial, the incentives for Promise are to ensure that they have the best rates possible of a) showing up for trial and b) not committing extra offenses until then. The only danger I see is the possibility that they would over-select candidates and get too many who use this as a way to dodge their trials or commit more crimes. Since either of these harm their ability to do business, I would think you agree that they are incented to minimize those events. I dont think Lucas applies; its about the weakness of regulations to control actors. This is a new organization that aims to offer an alternative for existing government actors.

tmuir 9y ago
This is all happy-path talk. We'll do everything right forever in all cases no matter what, talk. I'm concerned about what their plan is for if and when they find out that the hypothesis that is their most prominent, and most marketable use case has been falsified, yet it turns out that some other market they hadn't even considered at the start is absolutely printing money for them, even if it represents significant mission creep from keeping poor people out of jail. Supposing that their motives are profit driven is putting two and two together. We're currently in the middle of YC demo days. This very post constitutes a prong in their launch strategy. Claiming that profit motive and the motive to do good in the world are mutually exclusive is the true red herring here. It is separately egregious, because it also aims to frame my argument as wanting them to fail in any related venture. As I've said all along, I'd simply like to know what, besides blind trust, should we lean on, to ensure that a private company, who will undoubtedly have lots of reasons to want to keep its methodologies a secret, will be honest and forthcoming in the better than average chance that their favored marketing use case doesn't end up as what is truly sustaining their business. After all, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The answer to people claiming you might be a bad actor is go the extra mile, and do things and con men cannot, such as provide meaningful context, and coherent arguments that actually address your skeptics' questions. The Lucas Critique is actually one of those theories that has been put forth in many permutations, such as the Cobra Effect, Campbells Law, and Goodhart's Law. In plain english, its just saying that if you want to prevent some behavior in others, giving clear, explicit, comprehensive targets of what it means to comply is counterproductive, because those targets are always an imperfect proxy for the actual behavior you wish to curb, and "compliance" can nearly always be achieved to the letter of the law, while not in the spirit of the law. It applies to social theory in general, which is the context of Campbell's Law.