lukeprog comments on Will the world's elites navigate the creation of AI just fine? - Less Wrong

20 Post author: lukeprog 31 May 2013 06:49PM

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Comment author: lukeprog 21 November 2013 11:39:25AM 3 points [-]

There was so much worth quoting from Better Angels of Our Nature that I couldn't keep up. I'll share a few quotes anyway.

sometimes the advantage of conformity to each individual can lead to pathologies in the group as a whole. A famous example is the way an early technological standard can gain a toehold among a critical mass of users, who use it because so many other people are using it, and thereby lock out superior competitors. According to some theories, these “network externalities” explain the success of English spelling, the QWERTY keyboard, VHS videocassettes, and Microsoft software (though there are doubters in each case). Another example is the unpredictable fortunes of bestsellers, fashions, top-forty singles, and Hollywood blockbusters. The mathematician Duncan Watts set up two versions of a Web site in which users could download garage-band rock music. In one version users could not see how many times a song had already been downloaded. The differences in popularity among songs were slight, and they tended to be stable from one run of the study to another. But in the other version people could see how popular a song had been. These users tended to download the popular songs, making them more popular still, in a runaway positive feedback loop. The amplification of small initial differences led to large chasms between a few smash hits and many duds—and the hits and duds often changed places when the study was rerun.

Comment author: lukeprog 21 November 2013 12:16:04PM 6 points [-]

More (#3) from Better Angels of Our Nature:

let’s have a look at political discourse, which most people believe has been getting dumb and dumber. There’s no such thing as the IQ of a speech, but Tetlock and other political psychologists have identified a variable called integrative complexity that captures a sense of intellectual balance, nuance, and sophistication. A passage that is low in integrative complexity stakes out an opinion and relentlessly hammers it home, without nuance or qualification. Its minimal complexity can be quantified by counting words like absolutely, always, certainly, definitively, entirely, forever, indisputable, irrefutable, undoubtedly, and unquestionably. A passage gets credit for some degree of integrative complexity if it shows a touch of subtlety with words like usually, almost, but, however, and maybe. It is rated higher if it acknowledges two points of view, higher still if it discusses connections, tradeoffs, or compromises between them, and highest of all if it explains these relationships by reference to a higher principle or system. The integrative complexity of a passage is not the same as the intelligence of the person who wrote it, but the two are correlated, especially, according to Simonton, among American presidents.

Integrative complexity is related to violence. People whose language is less integratively complex, on average, are more likely to react to frustration with violence and are more likely to go to war in war games. Working with the psychologist Peter Suedfeld, Tetlock tracked the integrative complexity of the speeches of national leaders in a number of political crises of the 20th century that ended peacefully (such as the Berlin blockade in 1948 and the Cuban Missile Crisis) or in war (such as World War I and the Korean War), and found that when the complexity of the leaders’ speeches declined, war followed. In particular, they found a linkage between rhetorical simple-mindedness and military confrontations in speeches by Arabs and Israelis, and by the Americans and Soviets during the Cold War. We don’t know exactly what the correlations mean: whether mule-headed antagonists cannot think their way to an agreement, or bellicose antagonists simplify their rhetoric to stake out an implacable bargaining position. Reviewing both laboratory and real-world studies, Tetlock suggests that both dynamics are in play.

Comment author: Clarity 17 October 2015 05:03:49PM *  1 point [-]

Further reading on integrative complexity:

Wikipedia Psychlopedia Google book

Now that I've been introduced to the concept, I want to evaluate how useful it is to incorporate into my rhetorical repertoire and vocabulary. And, to determine whether it can inform my beliefs about assessing the exfoliating intelligence of others (a term I'll coin to refer to that intelligence/knowledge which another can pass on to me to aid my vocabulary and verbal abstract reasoning - my neuropsychological strengths which I try to max out just like an RPG character).

At a less meta level, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the trait will inform whether I choose to signal it or dampen it from herein and in what situations. It is important for imitators to remember that whatever IC is associated with does not neccersarily imply those associations to lay others.

strengths

  • conflict resolution (see Luke's post)

As listed in psycholopedia:

  • appreciation of complexity
  • scientific profficiency
  • stress accomodationo
  • resistance to persuasion
  • prediction ability
  • social responsibliy
  • more initiative, as rated by managers, and more motivation to seek power, as gauged by a projective test

weaknesses

based on psychlopedia:

  • low scores on compliance and conscientiousness

  • seem antagonistic and even narcissistic based on the wiki article:

  • dependence (more likely to defer to others)

  • rational expectations (more likely to fallaciously assume they are dealing with rational agents)

Upon reflection, here are my conclusions:

  • high integrative complexity dominates low integrative complexity for those who have insight into the concept and self aware of how it relates to them, others, and the capacity to use the skill and hide it.
  • the questions eliciting the answers that are expert rated to define the concept of IC by psychometricians is very crude and there ought to be a validated tool devised, if that is an achievable feat (cognitive complexity or time estimates beyond the scope of my time/intelligence at the moment)
  • I have been using this tool as my primary estimate of intelligence of people but will instead subordinate it to ordinary psychometric status before I became aware of it here and will now elevate traditional tools of intelligence to their established status
  • I'm interested in learning about the algorithms used to search say Twitter and assess IC. Anyone got any info?
  • very interested in any research on IC association with corporate board performance and shareprices etc. Doesn't seem to be much research but generally research does start with Defence implications before going corporate...
  • Interested in exploring relations between the assessment of IC and tools used in CBT given their structural similarity...and by extensions general relationships between IC and mental health
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