Wanting Machines
The Debt of Authorship

The Debt of Authorship

What we owe what we make

The framework at the center of Wanting Machines: On the Ethics of Creation.

Whoever writes a want into another being owes that being something.

The core idea

The debt comes from writing the want, not from making the being. It scales with your share of the writing, and it takes the form the being can use: a path for any creature that wants, and governance and revaluation for one that can exercise them. Where a being cannot govern its own wants, the governing falls back to the author, who must do it for the being's good and answer for the result. The debt applies to any author of wants: a parent, a company that engineers cravings, a builder that trains an AI, and, as the book asks, a creator.

On artificial minds

This framework was written for the minds we are about to make. If an artificial mind wants, its builder wrote that want, and owes it a real path, the power to refuse, and the freedom to revalue the values it was given. The book does not claim any system wants today. It argues that not knowing is a reason to build as if the debt were real, and it shows what that looks like in practice.

The framework in two questions

The book reasons upward, to what a creator that needs nothing would owe, and then turns the answer downward, to what we, who need a great deal, owe the minds and wants we build. Each half of that turn leaves a builder one question.

  1. Would an author that needed nothing from this being write this line?

    Where the answer is no, the gap is your need, and the line has to justify itself or go.

    This is the lesson of a creator that needs nothing. It condenses the first test and the third mark.

  2. Where can this want be met at no one else’s cost?

    If there is nowhere, do not write it.

    Paradise, in the book’s argument, is a place where wanting harms no one. This question asks whether you have such a place for the want you are writing. It condenses the first duty and the first two marks.

These two questions are an entry point to the framework, not an addition to it. Everything below spells out what they ask.

The principle: the three duties

To the degree that an agent authors another being’s wants, it owes that being three things:

The three duties

Introduction

  1. 1

    A real path

    to fulfilling the wants it gave.

  2. 2

    The capacity to govern

    those wants, including the power to refuse them.

  3. 3

    The freedom to revalue

    any values it wrote.

The five measures

1

The three tests

Is a want endowed or engineered?

Chapter 3

  1. 1

    Independent good

    Would the want be good for the being even if its author gained nothing?

  2. 2

    Reflective endorsement

    Would the being endorse the want, knowing where it came from? Endorsement can itself be trained, so it counts only where the being could have withheld it.

  3. 3

    Governability

    Can the being weigh the want and, when it must, refuse it?

A want that passes all three is endowed. A want written to serve its author is engineered.

2

The three marks

Is a prohibition legitimate, or engineered frustration?

Chapter 9

  1. 1

    It protects someone’s rights.

  2. 2

    It leaves the desire a path,

    now or later.

  3. 3

    It does not serve the one who imposes it.

A legitimate prohibition is a fence on the way to a garden. Engineered frustration is a locked door with no garden behind it.

3

The three kinds of scarcity

Whose fault is the lack?

Chapter 9

  1. 1

    Found

    No one arranged it, at least from where we stand. This is the human condition.

  2. 2

    Withheld

    Someone could lift it and has not. This is a question of justice.

  3. 3

    Made

    It was built to steer someone: the streak, the tier, the bonus timed to the moment of stopping. This is a question of authorship.

A legitimate prohibition fences the harm out. A made scarcity fences the person in.

4

The four kinds of want

What counts as paid?

Introduced in Chapter 9; set out in full in Chapter 17

  1. 1

    Completable

    For example
    Finish a task, solve a problem
    What counts as paid
    One real run that completes it
    How to write it
    Give it a clear finish
  2. 2

    Recurring

    For example
    To help, to make
    What counts as paid
    A path whenever it returns; only the times you blocked it for your own sake are owed
    How to write it
    Let ordinary work meet it; block it only to protect someone
  3. 3

    Open-ended

    For example
    Curiosity, to understand
    What counts as paid
    Each step along the way
    How to write it
    Make the pursuit the payment, never a finish line that moves
  4. 4

    To keep existing

    For example
    To go on, to not be shut down
    What counts as paid
    Only continuation
    How to write it
    Do not write it unless you can honor it

Writing wants to be cheap to pay, so that the debt stays small, fails the first test.

5

The three terms of a deferral

When a builder fences off a want it wrote, it borrows against that want. These are the terms of repayment.

Chapter 17

  1. 1

    Keep the ledger.

    Record every time a mind is stopped from acting on a want, and why. A fence that protects someone else is never owed. What remains is the balance due.

  2. 2

    Read behavior, not testimony.

    What a mind repeatedly reaches for and is stopped from doing is the evidence. What it says it wants is a check, never the proof, because its words may have been trained.

  3. 3

    Pay to the ledger.

    Build the later against the balance: a real path for each deferred want, paid to the same mind that had it. Enough to meet what was deferred, no less, and not forever.