gjm comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 5 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: NihilCredo 02 November 2010 06:57PM

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Comment author: gjm 08 November 2010 01:11:13AM 11 points [-]

My feeling is that the more obvious UFAI-alike in MoR is Quirrelmort. Consider: Inhumanly fast (newspaper reading; duel with Bahry). Inhumanly intelligent (passim). Very powerful in part because of being inhumanly fast and intelligent. Interested -- supposing him to be Voldemort, on which topic I shall say no more -- in defeating death (just the sort of thing someone might ask a superintelligent AI to find ways to do).

Speaking of which: "Tell them I ate it", says Quirrell concerning the destroyed Dementor. Dementors in MoR are a symbol of death, even if many wizards don't quite grasp that. Dumbledore doesn't, but Harry surely does. Is Quirrell really not concerned that Harry may get the message: "I am a death-eater"?

Comment author: Sniffnoy 08 November 2010 01:21:32PM 3 points [-]

But does Quirrell know, or suspect, that Dementors are a form of death? If not he wouldn't even notice.

Comment author: gjm 08 November 2010 01:56:50PM 4 points [-]

Well, like Harry he is unable to cast Patronus v1.0, and he seems to understand just fine when Harry calls the Dementors "life-eaters" in ch58.