Randaly comments on Open Thread, August 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong

2 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 01 August 2012 03:39PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (149)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Randaly 02 August 2012 12:10:30AM *  2 points [-]

Some people think so; they are wrong. (Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Most of these take overly broad vague definitions of a person's "platonic algorithm"; #5 is forgetting that natural selection acts on the level of genes, not people.)

Eliezer: "This is primarily a theory for AIs dealing with other AIs." Unfortunately, it's difficult to write papers or fiction publicizing TDT that solely address AI's- especially when the description of TDT needs to be in a piece of Harry Potter fanfiction.

On a slightly more interesting side note, if TDT were applicable in real life, people would likely be computation hazards, since a simulation of another person accurate enough to count as implementing the same, simulated platonic algorithm as the one they actually use would also be quite possibly be complex enough to be a person.