Utility Function Quotes

Human individuals and human organizations typically have preferences over resources that are not well represented by an "unbounded aggregative utility function". A human will typically not wager all her capital for a fifty-fifty chance of doubling it. A state will typically not risk losing all its territory for a ten percent chance of a tenfold expansion. [T]he same need not hold for AIs. An AI might therefore be more likely to pursue a risky course of action that has some chance of giving it control of the world. ~ Nick Bostrom

It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the ligitimate goals of his life. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

To Walk In Direction Is A Function That The Director Is Aware ~ Sunday Adelaja

This trial cannot be separated from the process of the historical struggle in Palestine that continues today between the Zionist Movement and the Palestinian people, a struggle that centers on Palestinian land, history, civilization, culture and identityAs for your judicial apparatus, which is where this court comes from: it is one of the instruments of the occupation whose function is to give the cover of legal legitimacy to the crimes of the occupation, in addition to consecrating its systems and allowing the imposition of these systems on our people through force. ~ Ahmad Sa'adat

Everyone has something they don't want anyone to see; that is one of the functions of a home, to provide a spot to keep such things. ~ Rex Stout

The carrying out of the Potsdam Agreement has, however, been obstructed by the failure of the Allied Control Council to take the necessary steps to enable the German economy to function as an economic unit. ~ James F. Byrnes

It is impossible to anticipate all of the misdeeds engendered by the universal conflict of human passions. They multiply at a compound rate with the growth in population and the interlacing of particular interests that cannot be directed with geometrical precision towards the public utility. ~ Cesare Beccaria

Writers who open up horizons for other people are performing a function every bit as important as a consciously politicized writer. ~ Wole Soyinka

Mercury is most commonly recognized as a developmental toxin, threatening to young children and fetuses as they develop their nervous system. Prenatal exposure to even low levels of mercury can cause life-long problems with language skills, fine motor function, and the ability to pay attention. ~ Frances Beinecke

There is no lie. The world is presented as it is. Nothing is concealed, except for perhaps the identity of the Creator, which is not so much a lie as it is a reasonable omission. No view is, however, disguised. No composition of the natural landscape is purposefully twisted or deformed so as to deliberately deceive, and no function of the natural world is dressed in sweet deception. No scream is muffled, no laceration sanitised, and the pain of hunger and thirst are naked for all to see and be sickened by. Diseases of every ghastly flavour are on loathsome display, the blights of parasitism are laid bare, and the crippling agonies of old age are public property. The terror of predation is revealed in every anguished look, the fear of infanticide written on every mother's face, and the misery of earthquakes, landslides, cyclones, floods, volcanoes, tsunamis, droughts, heat waves, and wild fires conferred uncensored upon stunned and appropriately intimidated audiences. ~ John Zande

Organisms [ ... ] are directed and limited by their past. They must remain imperfect in their form and function, and to that extent unpredictable since they are not optimal machines. We cannot know their future with certainty, if only because a myriad of quirky functional shifts lie within the capacity of any feature, however well adapted to a present role. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Society established gold and silver as a circulating medium and as a legal tender in order that exchanges of commodities might be facilitated; but society blundered in so doing; for, by this very act, it gave to a certain class of men the power of saying what exchanges shall, and what exchanges shall not, be facilitated by means of this very circulating medium. The monopolizers of othe precious metals have an undue power over the community: they can say whether money shall, or shall not, be permitted to exercise its legitimate functions. ~ William Batchelder Greene

Photography is the most transparent of the art mediums devised or discovered by man. It is probably for this reason that it proves so difficult to make the photograph transcend its almost inevitable function as document and act as a work of art as well. ~ Clement Greenberg

We conceive the function of Tribune to be the expression in popular form, and to as large a public as possible, of the views of the Left and Marxist wing of social democracy in this country. Its policy must be that of those who believe that the present leadership of the Labour Party is not sufficiently Socialist. ~ Anthony Crosland

The public service can continue to function regardless of its performance because it does not have to satisfy customers or produce a profit. ~ Anthea Jeffery

When you've been hurt enough as a kid (maybe at any age), it's like you have a trick knee. Most of your life, you can function like an adult, but add in the right portions of sleeplessness and stress and grief, and the hurt, defeated self can bloom into place. ~ Mary Karr

Exercise is the single most powerful tool you have to optimize your brain function ... exercise has a profound impact on cognitive abilities and mental health. It is simply one of the best treatments we have for most psychiatric problems. ~ John Ratey

At the 150-minute point of sitting in a standard theater chair, the human buttocks die; once dead, they cannot be revived. They cease to function, whatever that function may have been, and must be carried around like a sack, or two, of flour. ~ Michael J. Nelson

Government and businesses cannot function without enormous amounts of data, and many people have to have access to that data. ~ Glenn Greenwald

No one's brain is different enough to make constant interruptions, distractions, and task-switching an optimal environment in which to function. No one's. ~ Susan Maushart

So, it is a basic function of education to help you to find out what you really love to do, so that you can give your whole mind and heart to it, because that creates human dignity, that sweeps away mediocrity, the petty bourgeois mentality. That is why it is very important to have the right teachers, the right atmosphere, so that you will grow up with the love which expresses itself in what you are doing. Without this love your examinations, your knowledge, your capacities, your position and possessions are just ashes, they have no meaning; without this love your actions are going to bring more wars, more hatred, more mischief and destruction. All this may mean nothing to you, because outwardly you are still very young, but I hope it will mean something to your teachers - and also to you, somewhere inside. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Hoarding appeared to result, at least in part, from deficits in processing information. Making decisions about whether to keep and how to organize objects requires categorization skills, confidence in one's ability to remember, and sustained attention. To maintain order, one also needs the ability to efficiently assess the value or utility of an object. ~ Gail Steketee

Men have few restraints in expressing to prostitutes - during sex or in any sexual scenario - their real attitudes toward women as a class; they have no reason to feel constrained, since the woman is there to be a woman, period - to be inferior, subservient, and used. She is there because the man wants a woman, someone exactly of her class, someone who is her sex function, not human but an it, a cunt: she is there for that reason, not for anything human in her. Her function is limited, specialized, sex-specific, and intensely and intrinsically dehumanizing. ~ Andrea Dworkin

The idea of Buddha consciousness is that all beings are Buddha beings, and your whole function in meditation and everything else is to find that Buddha consciousness within and live out of that, instead of the interests of the eyes and ears. ~ Joseph Campbell

Evey: Who are you?
V. : Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.
Evey: Well I can see that.
V. : Of course you can, I'm not questioning your powers of observation, I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.
Evey: Oh, right.
V. : But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace soubriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the "vox populi" now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.
Evey: Are you like a crazy person?
V. : I'm quite sure they will say so. ~ Alan Moore

As content strategist Jonathon Colman, who works for Facebook, told me: "Start with empathy. Continue with utility. Improve with analysis. Optimize with love. ~ Ann Handley

The main function of consciousness is to maximize flexibility and context sensitivity. ~ Thomas Metzinger

I miss my pilot," M-Bot said. "I 'miss' him because of the loss of knowledge. Without proper information, I cannot judge my future actions. My ability to interface with the world, and to be efficient, is lessened." He hesitated. "I am broken, and do not know how to fulfill my purpose. Is this how you feel?"
"Maybe." I made a fist, forcing myself to stop fidgeting. "But I'm going to beat it, M-Bot."
"It must be nice to have free will."
"You have free will too. We've talked about this."
"I simulate it in order to seem more palatable to humans," he said. "But I do not have it. Free will is the ability to ignore your programming. Humans can ignore theirs, but I - at a fundamental level - cannot."
"Humans don't have programming."
"Yes you do. You have too much of it. Conflicting programs, none of it interfacing properly, all calling different functions at the same time - or the same function for contradictory reasons. Yet you ignore it sometimes. That is not a flaw. It is what makes you you. ~ Sanderson Brandon

Theological discourses function in various ways as sites of contestation and resistance, of forming new religious and personal identities, and of building solidarities. Theological discourses that theologians produce, disseminate, and teach in academia are not simply objective interpretations and neutral reflections on the world and the church in it. Instead theological discourses are productions of and for the world and the church that we live in ~ Namsoon Kang

Please take a moment to answer this questionnaire and discover if you can benefit from a Taco Cleanse: Do you experience recurring feelings of hunger on a daily basis? Do you frequently lack access to eating utensils such as forks or chopsticks? Do you consider tortillas to function as edible napkins? Do you enjoy attention from peers based on dietary restrictions? Do you experience a range of emotions? Do you tilt your head when inserting food into your mouth? Do you use medical websites to self-diagnose your symptoms? Answering yes to any of these questions may indicate that a Taco Cleanse is right for you. ~ Wes Allison

The reason the founders chafed at the idea of an American standing army and vested the power of war making in the cumbersome legislature was not to disadvantage us against future enemies, but to disincline us toward war as a general matter ... With citizen-soldiers, with the certainty of a vigorous political debate over the use of a military subject to politicians' control, the idea was for us to feel it- uncomfortably- every second we were at war. But after a generation or two of shedding the deliberate political encumbrances to war that they left us ... war making has become almost an autonomous function of the American state. It never stops. ~ Rachel Maddow

A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Arrested by the holy close of lips, Strength'ned by the interchangement of your rings, And all the ceremony of this compact Seal'd in my function, by my testimony. ~ William Shakespeare

My comic sense, although deliberately Americanized, is, in its intent, much closer related to the crazy wisdom of Zen monks and the goofy genius of Taoist masters than it is to, say, the satirical gibes on Saturday Night Live. It has both a literary and a metaphysical function. ~ Tom Robbins

This sort of information gathering is precisely what we call play. And the important function of play is thus revealed: it permits us to gain, without any particular future application in mind, a holistic understanding of the world, which is both a complement of and a preparation for later analytical activities. ~ Carl Sagan

How could the Law of Retribution function properly when one party in a dispute was so wealthy and so powerful as to be virtually untouchable? ~ Reza Aslan

The turnaround, however, did not come without expensive failures. Apple had done a good job embracing the Internet, by making the process of getting access to the Web as simple as any other function of an iMac. But Apple's eWorld, a proprietary online subscription service bundled with new iMacs, was a flop, despite a friendly interface that suggested that going online could be as easy as walking from one neighborhood to the next. All it really offered was email services and a way to download software, and in practice it wasn't any easier to use than bigger services like EarthLink and AOL, which came bundled on Wintel PCs. ~ Brent Schlender