Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Banish the Clippy-creating Bias Demon! - Less Wrong

12 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 18 January 2013 02:57PM

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Tags: bias risk anthropomorphisation imagery

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Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 18 January 2013 07:54:31PM 16 points [-]

I would suggest that this is a useful thing to do on an individual level (to adjust for scope insensitivity and so forth) but a terrible thing to do on a group level (because it's mind-killing). Smells too much like the Yellow Peril for my taste.

The Anthropomorphization Cannon is a powerful weapon, and if it were to fall into the wrong hands...

Comment author: patrickmclaren 19 January 2013 06:34:41AM 1 point [-]

I feel that this position could be equally argued if the scopes were switched, given the following motivation.

...if we mentally anthropomorphised certain risks, then we'd be more likely to give them the attention they deserved. -- OP

For example, a harmless :-) play on your comment. All the while, keeping the above maximization criteria in mind.

I would suggest that this is a useful thing to do on a group level (because it's mind-killing; take Yellow Peril for example) but a terrible thing to do on an individual level (to adjust for scope insensitivity and so forth).

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