The analysis seems myopic: it treats each “bribe” as an isolated trade-off and ignores how every permanent tweak to the DAO’s utility function compounds over time. Successive preference mutations lower the expected value of all future proposals, so a forward-looking DAO should rationally reject any scheme that shifts its utility function even with a small upfront gain because it erodes long-term utility.
Well, the idea is that the preference mutation should only take place if the value of the bribe to the DAO's instrumental ability to accomplish its preexisting goals outweighs the cost of the increased complexity. I don't think Futarchies make a distinction between short-term and long-term utility, it's all ultimately integrated into a single utility function that forms the basis of the decision market, or at least that's what I'm envisioning here. So if a futarchy had, as one component of its utility, some long-term goals that would be significantly subverted by accepting a bribe then the bribe would have to be very large to compensate, and it might be possible that no bribe would be large enough to get the futarchy to accept.
The analysis seems myopic: it treats each “bribe” as an isolated trade-off and ignores how every permanent tweak to the DAO’s utility function compounds over time. Successive preference mutations lower the expected value of all future proposals, so a forward-looking DAO should rationally reject any scheme that shifts its utility function even with a small upfront gain because it erodes long-term utility.
Am I missing something?
Well, the idea is that the preference mutation should only take place if the value of the bribe to the DAO's instrumental ability to accomplish its preexisting goals outweighs the cost of the increased complexity. I don't think Futarchies make a distinction between short-term and long-term utility, it's all ultimately integrated into a single utility function that forms the basis of the decision market, or at least that's what I'm envisioning here. So if a futarchy had, as one component of its utility, some long-term goals that would be significantly subverted by accepting a bribe then the bribe would have to be very large to compensate, and it might be possible that no bribe would be large enough to get the futarchy to accept.