Overoptimization as the Natural Consequence of Technique
ChatGPT, Cheating, and choosing not to do all that you can do
One of the most insightful liberal thinkers I know (and usually disagree with) is Freddie DeBoer. In a recent post he coined the term āoveroptimizationā to describe a phenomenon he was witnessing due to the explosion of information in our age:
Overoptimization has occurred when the introduction of immense amounts of information into a human system produces conditions that allow for some players within that system to maximize their comparative advantage, without overtly breaking the rules, in a way that (intentional or not) creates meaningful negative social consequences.
If this feels familiar to readers of You Are Not Your Own, itās probably because āoveroptimizationā strongly resonates with Jacques Ellulās idea of ātechniqueā in The Technological Society:
Technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency . . . in every field of human activity.
For Ellul, efficiency is the most powerful value in the contemporary world, such that it subsumes all other values under it. If there is a more efficient way to do something, we feel a moral obligation to be efficient, regardless of other values. A trivial example of this is a family going on a cross country trip and the father is insistent that they āmake good time,ā and so they pass many natural beauties without stopping. In this case, the value of beauty, of experiencing the goodness of Creation, is lost for the sake of efficiency. Now apply that general principle to every sphere of human existence and you understand technique. The most efficient way to clean your carpets, raise your kids, have sex, and read the news. āBest practicesā for every action you can take.
It seems to me that what DeBoer is getting at with āoveroptimizationā are blatant examples of when technique causes harm by ignoring other values. He gives several examples of overoptimization that are instructive:
Online restaurant reservation services which created a secondary market for scalped reservations
Dating apps where men swap statistically effective opening lines with one another
The optimization of travel so that previously isolated destinations are now swamped with tourists
The optimization of baseball and basketball and the expense of the game itself
I would add the use of ChatGPT in colleges to this list. Although DeBoer says that with overoptimization you are not āovertly breaking the rules,ā and using ChatGPT to write your paper for you would certainly constitute overt rule breaking, it is the indirect use of AI that interests me here. For example, using ChatGPT to ābrainstormā or give you ideas or summarize a book you were supposed to have read. Here an increase in information allows students to game the system to avoid doing the work they were required to in a way that may not technically break rules but does cause social harm.
Whatās the harm? If students donāt practice brainstorming on their own, they will not develop the imagination required to do advanced critical thinking. If they donāt do the reading themselves, they wonāt develop the interpretative skills necessary to be good readers. And our society desperately needs people with advanced critical thinking and reading skills. Perhaps the most alarming thing about the use of technology to avoid education is that a number of people see this as a virtue. And this is a pattern with overoptimization. Some people have so deeply bought into technique that they see any successful gaming of a system as being āsmart.ā The more automated our systems in society become, the more people feel morally free to game the system.
If āoveroptimizationā is merely an extreme manifestation of Ellulās ātechnique,ā then what are we to do? Information is only going to become more available, not less. And weāll only have more automated ways of analyzing and acting on that information through AI and bots.
As I argue in You Are Not Your Own, we have a particular obligation as Christians to āagree not to do all [we are] capable of,ā as Ellul puts it. We must choose to go against the impulse to adopt every available method of efficiency and instead evaluate each method against other values like love of neighbor, justice, care for creation, and beauty. Practically this means that we will lose out on some opportunities. If we have not optimized our travel we might miss out on seeing some exotic sights. If we have not optimized our paper writing, we might receive a lower grade or have to work longer hours. But there are some goods much more meaningful than efficiency. And we are going to have to fight to prioritize those goods.
What we need are both people in positions of influence in companies choosing not to do all the most efficient things for the sake of higher values, and consumers choosing not to adopt the most efficient technology for the sake of higher values. This requires a great deal of courage in a society obsessed with optimization.