wedrifid comments on Fake Causality - Less Wrong

41 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 August 2007 06:12PM

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Comment author: CuSithBell 04 June 2012 04:04:02AM 0 points [-]

To be fair, when structured as

Sadly, we humans can't rewrite our own code, the way a properly designed AI could.

then the claim is in fact "we humans can't rewrite our own code (but a properly designed AI could)". If you remove a comma:

Sadly, we humans can't rewrite our own code the way a properly designed AI could.

only then is the sentence interpreted as you describe.

Comment author: wedrifid 04 June 2012 04:14:33AM 0 points [-]

To be even more fair I also explicitly structured my own claim such that it still technically applies to your reading. That allowed me to make the claim both technically correct to a pedantic reading and an expression of the straightforward point that the difference is qualitative. (The obvious alternative response was to outright declare the comment a mere equivocation.)

only then is the sentence interpreted as you describe.

Meaning that I didn't, in fact, describe.

Comment author: CuSithBell 04 June 2012 04:26:22AM 0 points [-]

Not meant as an attack. I'm saying, "to be fair it didn't actually say that in the original text, so this is new information, and the response is thus a reasonable one". Your comment could easily be read as implying that this is not new information (and that the response is therefore mistaken), so I wanted to add a clarification.