Critic turns Nozick's 'utility monster' on Altman's resource grab, starting with RAM
Michael_D_Moor · x · 2026-11-01
A commenter invokes Nozick's 1974 'utility monster' thought experiment to critique Sam Altman's resource arguments: the framing that 'for the sake of total utility, people should not own a resource, but the monster should' — starting with RAM, and who knows what's next.
The utility monster is the classic critique of utilitarianism: a hypothetical being that derives vastly more utility per resource unit than anyone else, which under utilitarian logic would justify concentrating all resources in it at everyone else's expense. The author uses it to flag the risks of concentrating compute and RAM under AI giants.
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