timtyler comments on Safety Culture and the Marginal Effect of a Dollar - Less Wrong

23 Post author: jimrandomh 09 June 2011 03:59AM

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Comment author: timtyler 11 June 2011 01:55:29PM 0 points [-]

If they started out similar, such agents could still come to differ culturally. So, one might be a hardware expert, another might be a programmer, and another might be a tester, as a result of exposure to different environments.

However, today we build computers of various sizes, optimised for various different applications - so probably more like that.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 11 June 2011 02:34:02PM 0 points [-]

There's a limit to how similar people can be made to each other, but if there are efforts to optimize all the testers (for example), it could be a problem.

Comment author: timtyler 11 June 2011 02:47:04PM *  0 points [-]

Well, I doubt machines being too similar to each other will cause too many problems. The main case where that does cause problems is with resistance to pathogens - and let's hope we do a good job of designing most of those out of existence. Apart from that, being similar is usually a major plus point. It facilitates mass production, streamlined and simplified support, etc.