# Reframing Acausal Trolling as Acausal Patronage

In a [previous post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6nWhntKPtCFm8LFo6/logical-line-of-sight-makes-games-sequential-or-loopy), we looked at the [Prisoners' Dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma) through [Nicky Case's lens](https://ncase.me/trust/) of "two agents that can each pay a cost, in order to bring a bigger benefit to the other." Through that lens, **PrudentBot** is doing something that seems straightforwardly in its own interest: it checks to see if you'll Cooperate with it, and checks whether that Cooperation is conditional by seeing if you'd Cooperate with **DefectBot** too. (And if you don't legibly Defect on **DefectBot**, then **PrudentBot** Defects on you.)

**TrollBot** on the other hand does not seem like it's acting in its own interests: it checks to see if you'd legibly Cooperate with **DefectBot**, and if so it Cooperates with you! This sets up exactly the opposite incentive as **PrudentBot**, and this sort of phenomenon precludes any program from being a [dominant strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_dominance) to delegate your decision to. There's always some delegate that Defects on your favorite delegate, but Cooperates with another one.

Throughout this sequence I've been using the [Robust Cooperation](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iQWk5jYeDg5ACCmpx/robust-cooperation-in-the-prisoner-s-dilemma) paper as a model for [acausal trade](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/acausal-trade): with just the ability to accurately model each other and the situation that each agent finds itself in (logical line-of-sight), [modal agents](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iQWk5jYeDg5ACCmpx/robust-cooperation-in-the-prisoner-s-dilemma#Generalization__Modal_Agents) are able to robustly bring about a win-win outcome in a situation where their individual incentives seem to be totally misaligned with their collective interests.

Combining those lenses, **PrudentBot** is like a trading partner that will pay a cost to bring you a bigger benefit, if and only if you'll reciprocate and your reciprocation is conditional. Whereas **TrollBot** is like a trading partner that will pay a cost to bring you a bigger benefit, if and only if you'll pay it forward to a particular third party. Through this lens, **TrollBot** is acting altruistically to help **DefectBot**.

Acausal Auctions
----------------

For many decisions we make, there are third parties that care what we do. This leads to positive and negative [externalities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality), and in the [last post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yaJsCQokiyeLFHhgy/incorporating-justice-theory-into-decision-theory) I advocated for creating mechanisms that internalize some but not all of these externalities. (Some actions, like dropping a rocket on someone's car, create a debt to the affected party that should be enforced. Whereas having a very attractive or very unattractive haircut does not require compensation to flow in either direction.) 

When a decision-maker is free to choose among many options without incurring a debt to anyone, it can sometimes still be appropriate for third parties to offer payment in exchange for shifting their decision. Many governments will [subsidize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy) the installation of solar power systems, or the purchase of lower-emission vehicles for example. **TrollBot** can be thought of as **DefectBot**'s [patron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage), using their resources to improve the treatment that **DefectBot** receives.

As mentioned [previously](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/M7jg8FiXHt5YpcW4D/legibility-makes-logical-line-of-sight-transitive), **PrudentBot** and **TrollBot** offer conflicting incentives about how to treat **DefectBot**. Each is offering resources in exchange for taking different actions, and we can't simultaneously collect from both of them. We can summarize the incentives from many interested parties into an [auction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction), where bids take the form "if you take action A, I'll pay you $X." Such auctions appear in [Project Lawful](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SA9hDewwsYgnuscae/projectlawful-com-eliezer-s-latest-story-past-1m-words), and serve as a coordination mechanism that helps to align individual incentives with collective interests.

In many cases, such as when the action A is unsafe or [deontologically](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology) prohibited, the best thing we or our software systems can do is to ignore such bids. But when choosing among many permissible actions, like which vehicle to buy or [what sort of work to do](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment), responding to those incentives can often be [better for everyone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency) than ignoring them.