I like this, and it seems a lot of people are thinking this way lately
A common theme is that optimization usually does mostly bad things, while maybe arguably from someone's perspective doing one thing really well. I particularly like the example of the threshold cost to get something done versus the optimizer trying to lower costs. Both stakeholders in that example in actuality care about not going below the threshold, but the one drunk on optimization is incentivized to be at odds with keeping that cost center above it, let alone providing any cushion
The model many people here likely have for optimization is compile-time optimizations, but that's actually a weird class of special cases where you actually can prove you're not breaking anything by doing so. Most optimization looks more like strip-mining. It leaves the structures it touches barren and brittle
Most extant institutions have a desperate need to build better resistance to optimization-like objectives
Yes, and solving actual problems is a great way to frame a goal. People often equivocate between "optimization" and "improving things", so I don't blame you for it in particular. Optimization, by definition, requires that something be "overdone", that an objective function is maximized or minimized. Organizations with human decisionmakers aren't incapable of assessing other factors, what priorities not captured by the optimization objective might be relevant, but by framing decisions as optimization, especially throughout an organization or an economy, the pressure against that kind of sanity check is implied and grows the more "competent" an organization is
A common theme is that optimization usually does mostly bad things, while maybe arguably from someone's perspective doing one thing really well. I particularly like the example of the threshold cost to get something done versus the optimizer trying to lower costs. Both stakeholders in that example in actuality care about not going below the threshold, but the one drunk on optimization is incentivized to be at odds with keeping that cost center above it, let alone providing any cushion
The model many people here likely have for optimization is compile-time optimizations, but that's actually a weird class of special cases where you actually can prove you're not breaking anything by doing so. Most optimization looks more like strip-mining. It leaves the structures it touches barren and brittle
Most extant institutions have a desperate need to build better resistance to optimization-like objectives