= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
wedrifid comments on SotW: Be Specific - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (306)
An example of this that will be familiar to any programmer, and was taught to me in grade school, is "give orders to a malicious idiot." The teacher has the students write down the algorithm for a simple task, like "sharpen a pencil," with a wooden pencil and an old crank-operated sharpener as the props.
Typically, people begin with something like "stick the pencil into the sharpener, then turn the crank," which the teacher will do by ineffectually pushing the side of the pencil against the sharpener while turning the crank. The students revise to "stick the end of the pencil into the hole in the sharpener, then turn the crank," which the teacher will do by sticking the eraser into sharpener. (There are, if I remember correctly, four or five different features you can require the pencil-sharpening algorithm have, like which end of the pencil to stick into what part of the sharpener, which way to turn the crank, to hold the pencil still so it doesn't just spin with the crank or fall out if the sharpener is oriented poorly.)
(This will be familiar to programmers because going from the basic algorithm to code requires a level of detail that can't be faked.)
... Then the malicious idiot stabs you in the eye with the pencil. Oh, the malicious idiot was supposed to follow orders and only follow orders? Why didn't you say so?!
Because I love setting other people up for jokes.
I guess the malicious idiot is not suppossed to be creative, but lazy. They should use the simplest possible explanation -- only the simplicity is not measured by common sense, but by something like Solomonoff prior.
No, it's maliciousness, but very specifically aimed maliciousness. They don't want to hurt you, they just want to demonstrate that you are bad at giving directions.
I don't think this a good restriction. Consider the fact that Hanlon's Razor is even a thing:
This suggests that people often mistake stupidity for malice. So given that in these examples, your opponent probably does secretly understand what you're communicating (most of us know deep down how to sharpen a pencil), it might be necessary to have malice/creativity play the part of inferential distance. Otherwise you may learn to anticipate an unrealistically rational audience, one which never comes in with incorrect preconceived ideas, or lacks the necessary technical vocabulary, or seems to practice selective hearing, etc.
In short, original seeing is the exception, not the rule, so the opponent should be at least slightly hostile in his/her interpretations to account for this.