Effective Will Hunting Sean: I thought about what you said to me the other day, about saving humanity. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me and I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep and haven’t thought about you since. You know what occurred to me? Will: No. Sean: You’re just a kid. You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Will: Why, thank you. Sean: It’s all right. You’ve never been out of the LessWrong forums. Will: Nope. Sean: So if I asked you about ethics, you’d probably give me the skinny on every philosophy book ever written… Peter Singer? (Beat.) You know a lot about him. Moral obligations, drowning children, the whole works, right? But I bet you can’t tell me what it feels like to have somebody depend on you. Actually depend on you. When you’re tired. When you’re angry. When keeping your word means giving up something you’re never gonna get back. If I asked you about humanity, you’d probably give me a number. You may have even worked out how much a life is worth. But you couldn’t tell me what it feels like to sit beside someone you love and hear a doctor say there’s nothing more they can do. To look at her… and realize the whole world’s still gonna be here tomorrow. Just going about its business. You’re a smart kid. I ask you about power, and you’d probably—uh—throw an alignment paper at me, right? Incentives. Oversight. All the safeguards. But have you ever watched a good man discover how much he likes being obeyed? Watched him bend a rule, just once, because the work’s too important? Then another. Then another. Still a good man. Still saving the world. Just needs everybody to do what he says. And if I asked you about love, you’d probably tell me how much you care about future generations. All those people. All those centuries. But have you ever loved somebody whose choices you couldn’t understand? Known they were making a mistake… and known their life belonged to them? You couldn’t argue them out of it. Couldn’t make the decision for them. You had to stay. Had to love them through the part you couldn’t fix. You talk about caring for humanity. Humanity’s gonna disappoint you, Will. It’s gonna hear your beautiful argument and go right on wanting something else. You gonna care about it then? When it laughs at you? When it tells you to leave it alone? (Will looks away.) But you’re a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. And you presume to know what everybody ought to want because you’ve built a model of their happiness. You’re an effective altruist, right? (Will nods.) Do you think you’d know the first thing about a woman’s life—what she’s lost, what she hopes for, what she’d die for—because you put a number on her welfare? Does that encapsulate her? Personally, I’d like to hear about you. Why you need to be the one holding the future. What you’re afraid will happen if the rest of us get a say. Because I’m fascinated. I’m in. But you don’t wanna talk about that, do you, sport? You’re terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief. (Sean stands and walks away.)