Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Rationality Quotes: December 2010 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Tiiba 03 December 2010 03:23AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 December 2010 10:34:22AM 10 points [-]

I can't help but ask whether you've ever found this advice personally useful, and if so, how.

Comment author: waitingforgodel 15 December 2010 11:33:18AM 1 point [-]

Never trust anyone unless you're talking in person? :p

Comment author: Nentuaby 18 December 2010 02:12:32AM 6 points [-]

A much more concrete example is cloud computing. Granted, computers don't "think," but it's a close enough analogy.

You must always keep in mind that there is no magic "cloud"- only concrete machines that other people own and keep hidden from you. People who might have very different ideas than you on such matters, as for example, privacy rights.

Comment author: HonoreDB 15 December 2010 10:33:52PM 1 point [-]

This is the allusion I had in mind, but actually I've had occasion to quote this when talking about corporations and similar institutions. If an organization doesn't keep its brain inside a human skull (and I'm sure some do), it seems guaranteed to make bizarre decisions. Anthropomorphizing corporations can be a dangerous mistake (certainly has been for me more than once).

Comment author: MBlume 15 December 2010 09:53:27PM 13 points [-]

Actually my first thought upon reading that was "follow the improbability" -- be suspicious of elements of your world-model that seem particularly well optimized in some direction if you can't see the source of the optimization pressure.

Comment author: bcoburn 15 December 2010 09:24:39PM 3 points [-]

The reasonable way to interpret this seems to be "don't trust something you don't understand/cannot predict." Not sure how seeing where it keeps its brain helps with that, though.

Comment author: Larks 15 December 2010 04:28:46PM 3 points [-]

Telemarketers.

Comment author: [deleted] 15 December 2010 01:40:36PM 1 point [-]

Never trust other thinking beings if you don't know the location of their intelligence center so that you can destroy it if necessary?

Comment author: xamdam 15 December 2010 10:50:02AM 4 points [-]

Never trust another computational agent unless you can see its source code?

Comment author: topynate 15 December 2010 02:13:53PM 0 points [-]

Talking to Clippy? As in, I don't.

Comment author: Clippy 15 December 2010 04:44:41PM 0 points [-]

Why not?