Vladimir_Nesov comments on The mind-killer - Less Wrong

23 Post author: ciphergoth 02 May 2009 04:49PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 04 May 2009 01:21:40AM 0 points [-]

A reasonable position, so long as you remain truly ignorant of what AI is specifically about.

Comment author: taw 04 May 2009 09:57:14AM *  1 point [-]

I don't know if inside view forecasting can ever be more reliable than outside view forecasting. It seems that insiders as a general and very robust rule tend to be strongly overconfident, and see all kinds of reason why their particular instance is different and will have better outcome than the reference class.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/07/beware-the-insi.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 04 May 2009 10:44:56AM *  1 point [-]

I don't know if inside view forecasting can ever be more reliable than outside view forecasting. It seems that insiders as a general and very robust rule tend to be strongly overconfident, and see all kinds of reason why their particular instance is different and will have better outcome than the reference class.

Try applying that to physics, engineering, biology, or any other technical field. In many cases, the outside view doesn't stand a chance.