In my experience, beginning math students simply expect their nice-sounding procedures to work. For example, they expect to be able to add fractions straight across. When you tell them they can’t, they demand to know why they can’t, as though most nice-sounding theorems are true, and if you want to claim that one isn’t, the burden of proof is on you. It is only after students gain considerable mathematical sophistication (or experience getting burned by expectations that don’t pan out) that they place the burden of proofs on the theorems.
-- Anna Salamon
Um, keep in mind that that was in the context of Salamon evading an answer to a serious problem with her exposition: specifically, the question of what a could/should/would agent is not.
So the full context was more like:
Critic: What other kinds of agents could there be, besides “could”/“would”/“should” agents?
AnnaSalamon: Come now, AI people get it. Your question is like thinking you can just add fractions straight across.
This is a monthly thread for posting any interesting rationality-related quotes you've seen on LW/OB.