Mind · Strategy
CommitmentDevice
Pre-commitment against hyperbolic discounting
Definition
Mechanism
Anticipate that future self will face temptation or weakness. Remove future options by present action. Examples: delete the app, announce publicly, create penalty for deviation. Cost of breaking commitment must exceed temptation value. It constructs an OathBind contract that penalizes future deviation from the chosen path.
Risks
Failure modes
Over-commitment
Binding too early locks out legitimate pivots when new information arrives.
Silent lapse
the penalty was sufficient at binding time and is no longer — temptation grew, the penalty's value decayed, or the enforcing party stopped enforcing. Nothing in the device detects this, so a lapsed commitment continues to read as binding.
Caution
Removes future options by design — can trap agent in suboptimal commitment.
Relationships
Builds on
Used by
References
Society
Binding offer from solver to execute task
Infrastructure
Binding agreement between parties
Society
Escrow primitive: value held until condition preimage revealed or timeout
Reference
Data schema
{
"type": "object",
"required": [
"commitment",
"penalty"
],
"properties": {
"commitment": {
"type": "string",
"description": "The action being committed to"
},
"penalty": {
"type": "object",
"description": "Cost incurred if commitment broken"
},
"irrevocable": {
"type": "boolean",
"description": "Whether commitment can be undone"
}
}
}