Comment on Bayesian Judo

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 03:11:36 GMT

I think that Yudkowsky, hubris nonetheless, has made a few mistakes in his own reasoning.

A: "I don't believe Artificial Intelligence is possible because only God can make a soul." B: "You mean if I can make an Artificial Intelligence, it proves your religion is false?"

I don't see at all how this follows. At best, this would only show A's belief about what only God can or cannot do is mistaken. Concluding this entails their belief is false is purely fallacious reasoning. Imagine the following situation:

A: "I don't believe entanglement is possible because quantum mechanics shows non-locality is impossible." B: "You mean if I can show entanglement is possible, it proves quantum mechanics is false?"

This is not a case of quantum mechanics being false, but rather a case of A's knowledge of what quantum mechanics does and does not show being false.

What you believe or don't believe about quantum mechanics or God is irrelevant to this point. The point is that the conclusion Yudkowsky made was, at best, hastily and incorrectly arrived at. Of course, saying that "if your religion predicts that I can't possibly make an Artificial Intelligence, then, if I make an Artificial Intelligence, it means your religion is false" is sound reasoning and a simple example of modus tollens. But that is not, as far as I can see, what A said.

A: "I didn't mean that you couldn't make an intelligence, just that it couldn't be emotional in the same way we are." B: "So if I make an Artificial Intelligence that, without being deliberately preprogrammed with any sort of script, starts talking about an emotional life that sounds like ours, that means your religion is wrong."

There again seems to be invalid reasoning at work here. Whether or not an AI entity can 'start talking' about an emotional life that sounds like ours has nothing to do with the comment made by A, which was about whether or not such AI entities could actually be emotional in the same way organic beings are.

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