Output-based pricing will likely have a Goodhart's law problem.

· Bits and Bobs 5/4/26
  • Output-based pricing will likely have a Goodhart's law problem.
    • The provider will want to just get done precisely what the customer asked for.
    • Similar to the monkey's paw.
    • It's impossible to specify precisely what you want against a malicious implementer.
      • The time to specify details compounds super-linearly.
      • That means that many problems quickly go underwater where it's cheaper to simply do it yourself than to specify it for others to execute.
    • You don't need a malicious implementor, just an optimizing one.
      • They'll take even a marginal benefit on the dimension they're being graded on at a catastrophic cost on a dimension they aren't being grade on.