TBH comments on Adaptive bias - Less Wrong
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Comments (31)
Please take note of the wording: "reject all bias as evil".
That is, lumping all demonstrated instances of bias into a general category of "ugh, I should avoid doing this" is likely to keep us from looking into the interesting adaptive properties of specific biases.
When confronted with a specific bias, the useful thing to do is recognize that it introduces error in particular contexts but may remain adaptive in other contexts. We will then strive to adopt prescriptive approaches, selected according to context, which help correct for observed bias and bring our cognition into line with the desired normative frameworks - which themselves differ from context to context.
I think this disagreement comes down to the definition of "bias", which Wikipedia defines as "a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result, when the tendency interferes with the ability to be impartial, unprejudiced, or objective." If a bias helps you make fewer errors, I would argue it's not a bias.
Maybe it is clearer if we speak of behaviors rather than biases. A given behavior (e.g. tendency to perceive what you were expecting to perceive) may make you more biased in certain contexts, and more rational in others. It might be advantageous to keep this behavior if it helps you more than it hurts you, but to the extent that you can identify the situations where the behavior causes errors, you should try to correct it.
Great audio clip, BTW.