We talk as if we pick our beliefs mainly for accuracy, but in fact we have many social motives for picking beliefs. In particular, we use many kinds of beliefs as group affiliation/conformity signals. Some of us also use a few contrarian beliefs to signal cleverness and independence, but our groups have a limited tolerance for such things.
Yes of course. Timing is essential to sending a good signal. In my post I was talking about the social value of timing, instead of the personal signaling value.
I've been wondering about the large disparity between the distribution of intelligence I see among famous intellectuals, many of whom are not very smart, and among my personal acquaintances, some of whom seem to be smarter than any famous person in the world whom I don't know. I've been at parties where I think Plato would have been in the second quartile of intelligence. So I've suspected that some mechanism consistently and powerfully filters out the greatest intellects from positions of power, or even tenure. This is a candidate mechanism.
Keith Henson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... claims to have been the first to make the simulation argument (in the 1980s, while talking with Hans Moravec). I'd guess that Bostrom noticed discussions about it on the Extropians mailing list in the early to mid 90s.
Again , my first sentence starts: "I have heard and read..." and I meant to include that with Bostrom, although I haven't read his academic papers. But when people give long presentations, and I've watched/listened to a few, the ideas are almost always in there in some detail.
For example, I'd watched and listened to about seven or eight of Hanson's presentations / interview podcasts on Ems before his book came out. I bought his book as well, but you don't need to in order to get 90% of his arguments. (I bought it in part so I could carefully go through it but mostly to give it my brother for Christmas who will read the book, but I doubt will watch Robin's talks.)
I am not sure why you are trying to judge a philosopher from his talks, rather than his papers and books (all of which are online and fully available to you, most from his homepage)... As far as I.J. Good goes, who deserves credit for discovering America, Leif or Christopher? My attitude is that of Lawrence Shepp:
I had heard and read so much about existential risk before listening or reading Bostrom that I didn't find anything original and can't easily judge who is a popularizer. I'm not sure what his special insights are into the Simulation Argument, something that goes back decades, but I'll go back and listen to those parts of his talks. Thanks for bring that up.
One problem I have listening to him speak is that I come away with the feeling that he doesn't know enough about the science aspect of strong A.I. I realize as a philosopher, he has to mostly stick with his strong points. Still, I'll watch and read him in the future.
Oh,and I.J. Good discussing runaway super intelligence back in 1965, decades before Bostrom, is *not* just a trivia point! That is what it means to be original! ((grin)) And I doubt I.J. Good was the first, although maybe in print that was easily accessible. I first read Good's quote in 2004 but the idea was common in computer science going back to the 1980s when I was a teenager, and I'm sure the 1970s as well. Robin would likely know.
Really? His Simulation Argument is an original and insightful way to frame the old speculation 'what if we're all like programs in a giant computer man'; his anthropics book is the clearest thing I've read on it and he made contributions there; the 'anthropic shadow' and 'probing the improbable' were excellent contributions to making anthropics relevant to other areas; you have to admit that he popularized 'existential risk' and crystallized a lot of work around the term; his embryo selection paper with Shulman, while very simple applications of behavioral genetics, still brought more systematization to the topic than anyone else had bothered to do; and then there's 'astronomical waste', the 'reversal test', the infinite ethics paper, the unilateralist's curse, the whole brain emulation roadmap...
I was referring to (per Collins) social value. An ill-timed contribution is typically ignored. Social value demands social influence.
Yes of course. Timing is essential to sending a good signal. In my post I was talking about the social value of timing, instead of the personal signaling value.
I already paid him, for that reason. We could have made his side $1,010 for that reason, but we didn't bother given the huge odds in my favor.
I'm pretty sure that you are simply overestimating the intelligence of people you know, and underestimating the intelligence of people you don't know.
entirelyuseless, how did Eliezer expect to collect on a bet which he can win only if the world ends?
Nick Bostrom was in the Extropians in the 1990s, whom I'd peg as the group with the largest (original influence / current media attention).
I've been wondering about the large disparity between the distribution of intelligence I see among famous intellectuals, many of whom are not very smart, and among my personal acquaintances, some of whom seem to be smarter than any famous person in the world whom I don't know. I've been at parties where I think Plato would have been in the second quartile of intelligence. So I've suspected that some mechanism consistently and powerfully filters out the greatest intellects from positions of power, or even tenure. This is a candidate mechanism.
I heard Henson talking about it around then.
Still, I'd be surprised if somebody else hadn't come up with it decades earlier.
For sure Bostrom was far from the first (tho he gets credit for popularizing the idea).
Keith Henson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... claims to have been the first to make the simulation argument (in the 1980s, while talking with Hans Moravec). I'd guess that Bostrom noticed discussions about it on the Extropians mailing list in the early to mid 90s.
If I recall correctly, Barrow and Tipler's 1988 Anthropic Cosmological Principle anticipated most, if not all, of Bostrom's Simulation Argument.
I don't have any strong reason to think it was original with them, either.
https://www.amazon.com/Anth...
Again , my first sentence starts: "I have heard and read..." and I meant to include that with Bostrom, although I haven't read his academic papers. But when people give long presentations, and I've watched/listened to a few, the ideas are almost always in there in some detail.
For example, I'd watched and listened to about seven or eight of Hanson's presentations / interview podcasts on Ems before his book came out. I bought his book as well, but you don't need to in order to get 90% of his arguments. (I bought it in part so I could carefully go through it but mostly to give it my brother for Christmas who will read the book, but I doubt will watch Robin's talks.)
I am not sure why you are trying to judge a philosopher from his talks, rather than his papers and books (all of which are online and fully available to you, most from his homepage)... As far as I.J. Good goes, who deserves credit for discovering America, Leif or Christopher? My attitude is that of Lawrence Shepp:
"Yes, but when I discovered it, it stayed discovered." http://www.nytimes.com/2006...
I had heard and read so much about existential risk before listening or reading Bostrom that I didn't find anything original and can't easily judge who is a popularizer. I'm not sure what his special insights are into the Simulation Argument, something that goes back decades, but I'll go back and listen to those parts of his talks. Thanks for bring that up.
One problem I have listening to him speak is that I come away with the feeling that he doesn't know enough about the science aspect of strong A.I. I realize as a philosopher, he has to mostly stick with his strong points. Still, I'll watch and read him in the future.
Oh,and I.J. Good discussing runaway super intelligence back in 1965, decades before Bostrom, is *not* just a trivia point! That is what it means to be original! ((grin)) And I doubt I.J. Good was the first, although maybe in print that was easily accessible. I first read Good's quote in 2004 but the idea was common in computer science going back to the 1980s when I was a teenager, and I'm sure the 1970s as well. Robin would likely know.
Really? His Simulation Argument is an original and insightful way to frame the old speculation 'what if we're all like programs in a giant computer man'; his anthropics book is the clearest thing I've read on it and he made contributions there; the 'anthropic shadow' and 'probing the improbable' were excellent contributions to making anthropics relevant to other areas; you have to admit that he popularized 'existential risk' and crystallized a lot of work around the term; his embryo selection paper with Shulman, while very simple applications of behavioral genetics, still brought more systematization to the topic than anyone else had bothered to do; and then there's 'astronomical waste', the 'reversal test', the infinite ethics paper, the unilateralist's curse, the whole brain emulation roadmap...
I'm tired so I read the title as "Smart Sincere Contrarian Trump". Now, that would have been a great title!
It's not about artificial intelligence as it is, so naturally you can't expect to collect.