TheOtherDave comments on Rationality Quotes: December 2010 - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: [deleted] 15 December 2010 04:51:49PM 3 points [-]

It isn't racist, it's realistic. If an entity thinks with something that we don't even call a brain, we shouldn't trust it because we have no way of knowing its motivations.

Clippy is a perfect example. How can I trust it to be a paperclip maximizer rather than an entity that claims to be a paperclip maximizer? (Over 50% of the LessWrong members, I estimate, do not) If Clippy were human, I would be able to easily assess whether or not it is telling the truth (in this particular instance, the answer would probably be "no", because most humans I know do not make very good paperclip maximizers). If Clippy is not human, then I have no way to judge which points in mindspace make its actions most likely.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 15 December 2010 05:04:20PM 4 points [-]

Talk about underconfidence!

I estimate a 99.9+% likelihood that nobody on this site trusts Clippy to be a paperclip maximizer.

In fact, I'm pretty much incorrigible on this point... that is, I estimate the likelihood that people will mis-state their beliefs about Clippy to be significantly higher than the likelihood that they actually trust Clippy to be a paperclip maximizer.

I do understand that this is epistemicly problematic, and I sort of wish it weren't so... I don't like to enter incorrigible states... but there it is.

Comment author: [deleted] 15 December 2010 07:20:09PM 0 points [-]

What is your estimation of the likelihood that I was understating my beliefs about Clippy?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 15 December 2010 08:56:11PM 0 points [-]

You haven't actually stated any beliefs about Clippy; you stated a belief about the readership of Less Wrong.

Regarding your beliefs about Clippy: as I said, I am incorrigibly certain that you believe Clippy to be human.

As for the likelihood that you were understating your beliefs about LW readers... hm. I don't have much of a model of you, but treating LW-members as a reference class, I'd give that ~85% confidence.

The remaining ~15% is mostly that you weren't understating them so much as not bothering to think explicitly about them at all, and used "over 50%" as a generic cached formula for "more confident than not." Arguably that's a distinction that makes no difference.

I estimate the likelihood that you actually disagree with me about LW readers, upon thinking about it, as ~0%.