SaidAchmiz comments on Rationality Quotes July 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Vaniver 02 July 2013 04:21PM

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Comment author: SaidAchmiz 15 July 2013 04:57:26PM 3 points [-]

Philosophers, I have said, should study AI. Should AI workers study philosophy? Yes, unless they are content to reinvent the wheel every few days. When AI reinvents a wheel, it is typically square, or at best hexagonal, and can only make a few hundred revolutions before it stops. Philosopher's wheels, on the other hand, are perfect circles, require in principle no lubrication, and can go in at least two directions at once. Clearly a meeting of minds is in order.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 16 July 2013 02:53:14PM 6 points [-]

I'd be interested in any specific examples of things AI workers can learn from philosophy at the present time. There has been at least one instance in the past: AI workers in the 1960s should have read Wittgenstein's discussion of games to understand a key problem with building symbolic logic systems that have an atomic symbol correspond to each dictionary word. But I can't think of any other instances.

Comment author: threewestwinds 27 July 2013 09:58:05AM 2 points [-]

Timeless decision theory, what I understand of it, bears a remarkable resemblance to Kant's Categorical Imperative. I'm re-reading Kant right now (it's been half a decade), but my primary recollection was that the categorical imperative boiled down to "make decisions not on your own behalf, but as though you decided for all rational agents in your situation."

Some related criticisms of EDT are weirdly reminiscent of Kant's critiques of other moral systems based on predicting the outcome of your actions. "Weirdly reminiscent of" rather than "reinventing" intentionally, but I try not to be too quick to dismiss older thinkers.

Comment author: Daniel_Burfoot 16 July 2013 09:52:07PM 2 points [-]

AI workers in the 1960s should have read Wittgenstein's discussion of games to understand a key problem with building symbolic logic systems that have an atomic symbol correspond to each dictionary word.

Can you elaborate on this? It sounds fascinating. I confess I can't make heads or tails of Wittgenstein.

Comment author: pragmatist 24 July 2013 12:40:31PM *  5 points [-]

Wittgenstein, in his discussion of games (specifically, his idea that concepts are delineated by fuzzy "family resemblance", rather than necessary and sufficient membership criteria) basically makes the same points as Eliezer does in these posts.

Representative quotes:

Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? -- Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games' "-but look and see whether there is anything common to all. -- For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look! -- ...

And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities.

I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances"; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and cries-cross in the same way.-And I shall say: 'games' form a family...

"All right: the concept of number is defined for you as the logical sum of these individual interrelated concepts: cardinal numbers, rational numbers, real numbers, etc.; and in the same way the concept of a game as the logical sum of a corresponding set of sub-concepts." --It need not be so. For I can give the concept 'number' rigid limits in this way, that is, use the word "number" for a rigidly limited concept, but I can also use it so that the extension of the concept is not closed by a frontier. And this is how we do use the word "game". For how is the concept of a game bounded?

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