TITLE: Software as Adaptation-Executer, Not Fitness-Maximizer
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: May 29, 2018  3:41 PM
DESC: 
-----
BODY:
 In
<A HREF="https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XPErvb8m9FapXCjhA/adaptation-executers-not-fitness-maximizers">
   Adaptation-Executers, not Fitness-Maximizers</A>,
 Eliezer Yudkowsky talks about how evolution has led to human
 traits that may no longer be ideal in the our current
 environment.  He also talks about tools, though, and this
 summary sentence made me think of programs:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 So the screwdriver's <B>cause</B>, and its <B>shape</B>, and
 its <B>consequence</B>, and its various <B>meanings</B>, are
 all different things; and only <B>one</B> of these things is
 found within the screwdriver itself.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 I often fall victim to thinking that the meaning of software
 is at least somewhat inherent in its code, but that really
 is what the designer intended as its use -- a mix of what
 Yudkowsky calls its cause and its consequence.  These are
 things that exist only in the mind of the designer and the
 user, not in the computational constructs that constitute
 the code.

 When approaching new software, especially a complex piece
 of code with many parts, it's helpful to remember that it
 doesn't really have objective meaning or consequences,
 only those intended by its designers and those exercised
 by its users.  Over time, the users' conception tends to
 drive the designers' conception as they put the software
 to particular uses and even modify it to better suit these
 new uses.

 Perhaps software is best thought of as an adaptation-executer,
 too, and not as a fitness-maximizer.
-----