fubarobfusco comments on The Useful Idea of Truth - Less Wrong

77 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 October 2012 06:16PM

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Comment author: fubarobfusco 02 October 2012 09:09:04AM *  0 points [-]

Koan: If we were dealing with an Artificial Intelligence that never had to argue politics with anyone, would it ever need a word or a concept for 'truth'?

I'm not sure what this has to do with politics? The lead-up discusses "an Artificial Intelligence, which was carrying out its work in isolation" — the relevant part seems to be that it doesn't interact with other agents at all, not that it doesn't do politics specifically. Even without politics, other agents can still be mistaken, biased, misinformed, or deceitful; and one use of the concept of "truth" has to do with predicting the accuracy of others' statements and those people's intentions in making them.

Comment author: pleeppleep 02 October 2012 12:50:28PM 1 point [-]

I think politics is used to refer to social manipulation, status, and signaling here. The example is used to designate an agent that has no concern for asserting social privilege over others.