Novelists often use characters to voice controversial views they are reluctant to say publicly themselves. In Tyler Cowen’s Discover Your Inner Economist, out this week, I seem to be similarly featured as a colorful character who can voice views Tyler is reluctant to embrace directly in a
"Robin believes that we are headed toward a "robot economy" with rates of exponential growth exceeding 300 percent a year. Yet the wages of labor may fall below subsistence, leading to widespread poverty for those who do not own capital."
Hasn't this claim been made before? Didn't Linus Pauling sign a petition to LBJ predicting that computers would create massive unemployment? If so, doesn't the current "internet economy" make the future "robot economy" much less scary?
If only feels like we love the arts for the arts' sake; in fact the charade is part of the point. If our love for the arts is to attract others - that is to fool them - we have to feel our passions as sincere.
(I'm assuming this is a fair statement of Robin's view.)
Individuals are adaptation-executers, not fitness-maximizers. Thus, even though propensities to things like art may have evolved because they signaled fitness, claiming that signaling fitness is the 'real motivation' for art isn't exactly accurate. The individual does love art for art's sake; the individual does not have 'signal to increase reproductive fitness' represented anywhere in their brain. Love of art can be sincere without any self-deception being involved, as the signaling motivation can't be discovered by any amount of introspection, only by doing science.
Do you place less value on art now that you're aware of the evolutionary reason for appreciating it?
Tyler, my wild ideas page says clearly at the top that my claim is that five of the fourteen are true, not that all are true. And if you only had the two word header "Medicine Useless" to go on, the misunderstanding would be understandable. But that two word header links directly to a short sentence where I explain my claim to be about a 50% cut in medical spending.
It's also worth checking my claims against Robin's own web site: http://hanson.gmu.edu/wildi.... There he definitely says he favors futarchy, says that in 2100 a head *will* be thawed out, and writes the phrase "Medicine Useless." Now it's fair enough for him to say he is exaggerating for effect, but I am just (as Bryan Caplan suggests) taking him literally and in this sense it is hard for me to see why he is complaining that I exaggerate his words.
Tyler's responses still do not address the question of where, if anywhere, he disagrees with you. It is frustrating to be painted as eccentric without any meaty arguments to strike back at (or acknowledge).
If only there were betting markets, you could publicize your portfolio of predictions and ask Tyler which, if any, he has taken the other side on. That would refute, or at least reflect, the incredulous stare.
You do link to it, but it is worth noting that the whole discussion is framed by the following very strong and very prominent statement:
"My other friend and colleague Bryan Caplan put it best: "When the typical economist tells me about his latest research, my standard reaction is `Eh, maybe.' Then I forget about it. When Robin Hanson tells me about his latest research, my standard reaction is `No way! Impossible!' Then I think about it for years.""
In other words, I am telling the reader that even if some of this sounds crazy, there is a lot to it.
Tyler, I'm not unhappy with your portrait overall, really - I just wanted to make some corrections. <ul><li>You are right that freezing might not be feasible in specific cases; I misunderstood you there.<li>Yes I would personally prefer to maximize total world wealth, broadly understood, but the phrase "national income" usually connotes a narrower accounting measure, and my proposal is to have a legislature manage the details of defining a national, not world, welfare.<li>On signaling, I was complaining about the phrase "to show we are fit mates," not the phrase "to furthering our genetic fitness."<li>I agree that I am overall relatively skeptical about medicine, and that I typically refer to a wide margin in medicine, corresponding to the roughly 30% margin examined in the RAND health insurance experiment. And I have expressed doubts about the other 70%. But the phrase "the money we spend ... is a waste" suggests a stronger claim about a 100% margin. My reference to clean air and exercise was to distinguish "health care" from "medicine."</ul>
Eliezer: I strongly agree with respect to 30 vs. 100 years and increased intelligence or catastrophe. Even with respect to movement towards attractors however I would be reluctant to assign much difference to, say 75 vs. 250 years or any difference between 200 and 600 years (given our ages, extrapolated linear gains in life expectancy, and the known life expectancy IQ correlation we can expect to talk it over then even without radical tech changes. even mild CR would clinch it). If we make it another 75 years without reaching an attractor I will consider our current models to be substantially falsified. 200 years would constitute more-or-less total falsification, but without greater than human intelligence our odds of seeing the results may be substantially lower in that case. No, probably not really. We probably gain more chance of making it to 228 via eliminating catastrophic risk than we loose via eliminating increased intelligence as a possibility. Not that we have a choice in the matter.
I should make one further note about bias: I've had several reporters tell me that subjects of "portraits" are rarely happy with what is written about them, especially if it makes them sound interesting.
On the specifics, a few responses: There are many ways to die where your head cannot be frozen, or not frozen in a useful way. Or your heirs might simply allow the instructions to be ignored. This is indeed very much up for grabs. You've repeatedly argued to me that a contractarian approach to policy would imply wealth maximization, not what a legislature produces. Some of your claims -- "Animals and humans signal not only to potential mates, but also to potential allies, enemies, predators, and prey. We signal not only our fitness as mates, but also our abilities and intentions to fight, evade, assist, and reciprocate" -- are perfectly consistent with what I wrote; it is still signaling to favor genetic fitness even if potential mates are not the ones watching the signal. In your own writings I think there is a great deal of ambiguity about what is the marginal unit; strictly speaking the marginal unit is a very small amount and does not imply a radical critique of the medical establishment. Read for instance Robin's paper on "Showing That You Care," on his home page. That you cite clean air and exercise as a defense of medicine I think only reflects just how skeptical you are. I can see that I've overestimated your estimate of the chances of being thawed out (though with uploads and exponential growth your chance is more than five percent), but overall I think my portrait of you was right on the mark!
I'd think Turing (and possibly Gödel) would have something to say regarding the utility of reading another mind's source code. It would probably help a little, but could hardly be expected to grant complete transparency.
Vassar, I'd be a lot more confident in predicting catastrophe or smarter-than-human intelligence 100 years out than 30 - I don't see a paradox in this, you're giving society more time to wander into an attractor.
Michael, no more signaling is an exaggeration of my position, but surely we could see more by looking inside others' brains. I don't claim 100 years is more predictable than 30 years in general.
Strange, I though that you had backed off from the transhumanist positions over the years, though without actively rejecting them, but here I see unequivocal endorsement of the expectation of uploading this century.
I'm somewhat curious as to how you can conclude anything about the next century with high certainty. You seem to think that the world of 100 years hence is much more predictable than that of 30 years hence (due to the law of large numbers), while I think the opposite (due to historical and logical contingencies). Would you agree with that assessment?
Also, how would uploads benefit from looking at one another's programs. It's not as if the adaptive benefit of a routine would be marked as "signaling". It seems to me that the source code for an upload would be completely inscrutable from outside, and probably from inside.
Pick a Topic: What Should a Cowen-Hanson Debate Be About?
Who wouldn't want to see Tyler Cowen publicly debate Robin Hanson? Well, aside from the masses? I think they'd both...
"Robin believes that we are headed toward a "robot economy" with rates of exponential growth exceeding 300 percent a year. Yet the wages of labor may fall below subsistence, leading to widespread poverty for those who do not own capital."
Hasn't this claim been made before? Didn't Linus Pauling sign a petition to LBJ predicting that computers would create massive unemployment? If so, doesn't the current "internet economy" make the future "robot economy" much less scary?
If only feels like we love the arts for the arts' sake; in fact the charade is part of the point. If our love for the arts is to attract others - that is to fool them - we have to feel our passions as sincere.
(I'm assuming this is a fair statement of Robin's view.)
Individuals are adaptation-executers, not fitness-maximizers. Thus, even though propensities to things like art may have evolved because they signaled fitness, claiming that signaling fitness is the 'real motivation' for art isn't exactly accurate. The individual does love art for art's sake; the individual does not have 'signal to increase reproductive fitness' represented anywhere in their brain. Love of art can be sincere without any self-deception being involved, as the signaling motivation can't be discovered by any amount of introspection, only by doing science.
Do you place less value on art now that you're aware of the evolutionary reason for appreciating it?
Tyler, my wild ideas page says clearly at the top that my claim is that five of the fourteen are true, not that all are true. And if you only had the two word header "Medicine Useless" to go on, the misunderstanding would be understandable. But that two word header links directly to a short sentence where I explain my claim to be about a 50% cut in medical spending.
It's also worth checking my claims against Robin's own web site: http://hanson.gmu.edu/wildi.... There he definitely says he favors futarchy, says that in 2100 a head *will* be thawed out, and writes the phrase "Medicine Useless." Now it's fair enough for him to say he is exaggerating for effect, but I am just (as Bryan Caplan suggests) taking him literally and in this sense it is hard for me to see why he is complaining that I exaggerate his words.
Tyler's responses still do not address the question of where, if anywhere, he disagrees with you. It is frustrating to be painted as eccentric without any meaty arguments to strike back at (or acknowledge).
If only there were betting markets, you could publicize your portfolio of predictions and ask Tyler which, if any, he has taken the other side on. That would refute, or at least reflect, the incredulous stare.
You do link to it, but it is worth noting that the whole discussion is framed by the following very strong and very prominent statement:
"My other friend and colleague Bryan Caplan put it best: "When the typical economist tells me about his latest research, my standard reaction is `Eh, maybe.' Then I forget about it. When Robin Hanson tells me about his latest research, my standard reaction is `No way! Impossible!' Then I think about it for years.""
In other words, I am telling the reader that even if some of this sounds crazy, there is a lot to it.
Tyler, I'm not unhappy with your portrait overall, really - I just wanted to make some corrections. <ul><li>You are right that freezing might not be feasible in specific cases; I misunderstood you there.<li>Yes I would personally prefer to maximize total world wealth, broadly understood, but the phrase "national income" usually connotes a narrower accounting measure, and my proposal is to have a legislature manage the details of defining a national, not world, welfare.<li>On signaling, I was complaining about the phrase "to show we are fit mates," not the phrase "to furthering our genetic fitness."<li>I agree that I am overall relatively skeptical about medicine, and that I typically refer to a wide margin in medicine, corresponding to the roughly 30% margin examined in the RAND health insurance experiment. And I have expressed doubts about the other 70%. But the phrase "the money we spend ... is a waste" suggests a stronger claim about a 100% margin. My reference to clean air and exercise was to distinguish "health care" from "medicine."</ul>
Eliezer: I strongly agree with respect to 30 vs. 100 years and increased intelligence or catastrophe. Even with respect to movement towards attractors however I would be reluctant to assign much difference to, say 75 vs. 250 years or any difference between 200 and 600 years (given our ages, extrapolated linear gains in life expectancy, and the known life expectancy IQ correlation we can expect to talk it over then even without radical tech changes. even mild CR would clinch it). If we make it another 75 years without reaching an attractor I will consider our current models to be substantially falsified. 200 years would constitute more-or-less total falsification, but without greater than human intelligence our odds of seeing the results may be substantially lower in that case. No, probably not really. We probably gain more chance of making it to 228 via eliminating catastrophic risk than we loose via eliminating increased intelligence as a possibility. Not that we have a choice in the matter.
I should make one further note about bias: I've had several reporters tell me that subjects of "portraits" are rarely happy with what is written about them, especially if it makes them sound interesting.
On the specifics, a few responses: There are many ways to die where your head cannot be frozen, or not frozen in a useful way. Or your heirs might simply allow the instructions to be ignored. This is indeed very much up for grabs. You've repeatedly argued to me that a contractarian approach to policy would imply wealth maximization, not what a legislature produces. Some of your claims -- "Animals and humans signal not only to potential mates, but also to potential allies, enemies, predators, and prey. We signal not only our fitness as mates, but also our abilities and intentions to fight, evade, assist, and reciprocate" -- are perfectly consistent with what I wrote; it is still signaling to favor genetic fitness even if potential mates are not the ones watching the signal. In your own writings I think there is a great deal of ambiguity about what is the marginal unit; strictly speaking the marginal unit is a very small amount and does not imply a radical critique of the medical establishment. Read for instance Robin's paper on "Showing That You Care," on his home page. That you cite clean air and exercise as a defense of medicine I think only reflects just how skeptical you are. I can see that I've overestimated your estimate of the chances of being thawed out (though with uploads and exponential growth your chance is more than five percent), but overall I think my portrait of you was right on the mark!
Discover Your Inner Literalist
Perhaps the most amazing thing about Robin Hanson is his determined literalism. He listens to your exact words, and evaluates...
I'd think Turing (and possibly Gödel) would have something to say regarding the utility of reading another mind's source code. It would probably help a little, but could hardly be expected to grant complete transparency.
Vassar, I'd be a lot more confident in predicting catastrophe or smarter-than-human intelligence 100 years out than 30 - I don't see a paradox in this, you're giving society more time to wander into an attractor.
Michael, no more signaling is an exaggeration of my position, but surely we could see more by looking inside others' brains. I don't claim 100 years is more predictable than 30 years in general.
Strange, I though that you had backed off from the transhumanist positions over the years, though without actively rejecting them, but here I see unequivocal endorsement of the expectation of uploading this century.
I'm somewhat curious as to how you can conclude anything about the next century with high certainty. You seem to think that the world of 100 years hence is much more predictable than that of 30 years hence (due to the law of large numbers), while I think the opposite (due to historical and logical contingencies). Would you agree with that assessment?
Also, how would uploads benefit from looking at one another's programs. It's not as if the adaptive benefit of a routine would be marked as "signaling". It seems to me that the source code for an upload would be completely inscrutable from outside, and probably from inside.