Jamie Loftus

So when economists are talking about this, it's part of how to kind of figure out why people might make rational choices by understanding like the value of sort of the ranked like preference they give to certain things that they might expend resources on, broadly speaking.

Right.

When Bankman, Freed, and EAs talk about utility functions, what they mean is something even more abstract.

And I'm going to quote from a summary from a write-up on effectivealtruism.org, a website you should avoid at all costs.

Quote.

Okay, sorry.

Continue.

In a very dumb way, Jamie.

Quote.

EAs and rationalists love dropping the term in every conversation.

Using the term utility function can be immensely helpful when aiming to maximize positive impact or do the most good.

The concept of a utility function provides a systematic way to quantify and compare the potential benefits of different actions.

thus helping to guide decision-making toward the most effective outcomes.

By representing values, goals, or beneficial outcomes numerically, utility functions allow for a structured comparison and prioritization of actions.

If, for example, your goal is to alleviate global suffering, you could assign values to different charitable actions based on their estimated impact, thus creating a utility function.

This function can then guide you to allocate your resources, like time or money, where they will generate the greatest utility, or good.

Now, that just seems like you're saying you should try to figure out how your money is going to be spent best right before you spend it.

But that's not actually what they're saying.

What they are doing here is they are they are like a utility function.

This context is a way of assigning a number that you have made up.