byrnema comments on Open Thread: September 2009 - Less Wrong

2 Post author: AllanCrossman 01 September 2009 10:54AM

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Comment author: byrnema 10 September 2009 09:42:37PM *  3 points [-]

Is there an easy way to access the first comment of someone without looking at their comment page and uploading "next" zillions of times?

You're probably wondering why I would want to do that. I have been motivated occasionally to read someone's comments from beginning to end, and today I found myself wondering what my first comment was about.

My mind frequently returns to and develops the idea that sometime in the future, a friendly artificial intelligence is going to read Less Wrong. It uploads all the threads and is simultaneously able to (a) read all the comments as they were written chronologically, and (b) keep track of each person's comments as they chronologically developed and evolved. I probably fantasize about this because I like to analyze patterns and wish I could do that.

The AI would notice all sorts of patterns that I only scantly glimpse...

  • patterns regarding time of day and frequency of postings; building posteriors about where people live (Europe or the U.S.) and whether they're a night owl or an early riser or travel across the Atlantic frequently

  • patterns of speech and the mutual social evolution of these patterns among LWers, yet still being able to tell if people communicate with one another outside LW or if they're really multiple accounts for the same person

  • of course, this FAI notices that byrnema has most excellent qualities, etc

What else would the FAI learn?

Does anyone else have this daydream?

Comment author: wedrifid 11 September 2009 08:57:48PM 0 points [-]

Does anyone else have this daydream?

Earlier today I was assigning probabilities to whether or not someone on this site was someone I used to date. If they aren't then I really should introduce them...