Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Unnamed 27 May 2010 12:10AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 May 2010 02:31:28AM 19 points [-]

Slightly edited the original post to avoid giving away what my readers have finally convinced me is, in fact, an undesirable spoiler. I also hope you didn't mind my removing the mention of FAI, because I feel fairly strongly about not mixing that into the fic. "A fanatic is someone who can't change their mind and won't change the subject"; if we can't shut up about FAI while talking about Harry Potter, we may have a problem.

Comment author: TobyBartels 24 February 2015 10:39:16PM 5 points [-]

Well, you kept it out for a long time.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 26 February 2015 11:43:09PM 1 point [-]

A ShoutOut is not the same as contaminating the plot.

Comment author: TobyBartels 01 March 2015 09:38:01AM *  1 point [-]

ETA: Spoilers for chapters in the early 100s.

Very true, and I don't agree with some comments that I've seen lately (and probably they've been around all along) complaining about all of the shout outs.

But we may have more of a shout-out here: there's a strong implication that the Mirror of Noitilov was created by Atlanteans attempting to create an honest-to-goodness FAI to avert an existential threat. Since Atlantis may have created magic entirely, and since there is already a lot of speculation among the fans that the existence of magic implies that MOR is a simulation run by an AI, this would put FAI and the existential threat of UFAI into the background of the world at a deep level.

Of course, only you know if this implication and speculation are correct. And either way, I'm not complaining!

Comment author: Unnamed 27 May 2010 05:54:35AM 3 points [-]

That's fine. I'm actually not that into AI, so I wasn't thinking about that problem, but you're probably right. I also made a slight edit to your slight edit so that it still sounds like me.

Comment author: NihilCredo 15 July 2010 01:32:30AM 3 points [-]

As someone who's often creeped out by LW, I approve.