We Don't Really Want Your Participation

Eliezer Yudkowsky

At the Singularity Summit yesterday, several speakers alleged that we should "reach out" to artists and poets to encourage their participation in the Singularity dialogue. So at the end of one such session, a woman went up to the audience microphone and said:

"I am an artist. I want to participate. What should I do?"

And there was a brief, frozen silence.

I wanted to leap up and say:

No, no, I'm afraid you've misunderstood. We're just calling for greater participation by artists. We can get plenty of credit for being enlightened just by issuing the call. If we really cared what artists thought, we would find some artists and ask them questions, not call for artists to participate. We don't actually want to hear from artists. We think your opinions are stupid.

And if she'd asked me afterward, my real answer would have been:

You are not an artist, you are a human being; art is only one facet in which you express your humanity. Your reactions to the Singularity should arise from your entire self. It's perfectly all right to have a boringly normal and nonunique reaction like "I'm afraid," or "I don't think we should do this," or "I want to help, where do I send the check?" The right answer is not always unusual. Your natural reaction does not need to be unique, and that's why you don't need to try to come up with an "artist's viewpoint" on the Singularity. I would call on you to participate as a human being, not an artist. If your artistry has something to say, it will express itself naturally in your responses, without you needing to make a conscious effort to say something artist-like.

But I didn't say any of this, of course. It would have been indecorous.

And while we're on the subject, I would feel rather patronized - like a dog commanded to perform a trick - if someone presented me with a painting and said, "Say something mathematical!"

"I am an artist. I want to participate. What should I do?"

And there was a brief, frozen silence.

I wanted to leap up and say:

No, no, I'm afraid you've misunderstood. We're just calling for greater participation by artists. We can get plenty of credit for being enlightened just by issuing the call. If we really cared what artists thought, we would find some artists and ask them questions, not call for artists to participate. We don't actually want to hear from artists. We think your opinions are stupid.

And if she'd asked me afterward, my real answer would have been:

You are not an artist, you are a human being; art is only one facet in which you express your humanity. Your reactions to the Singularity should arise from your entire self. It's perfectly all right to have a boringly normal and nonunique reaction like "I'm afraid," or "I don't think we should do this," or "I want to help, where do I send the check?" The right answer is not always unusual. Your natural reaction does not need to be unique, and that's why you don't need to try to come up with an "artist's viewpoint" on the Singularity. I would call on you to participate as a human being, not an artist. If your artistry has something to say, it will express itself naturally in your responses, without you needing to make a conscious effort to say something artist-like.

But I didn't say any of this, of course. It would have been indecorous.

And while we're on the subject, I would feel rather patronized - like a dog commanded to perform a trick - if someone presented me with a painting and said, "Say something mathematical!"

I have no objection to someone presenting me with a painting so long as it is pretty. And I have no objection to a painting in a math class, whether it's Escher, Norman Rockwell, or Fred Gallagher. I may even be moved to make a mathematical comment about the painting.

What I would find patronizing is someone thrusting a painting at me and saying "Say something mathematical!" I think it is equally patronizing to ask an artist to saying something artistic about the Singularity or a poet to say something poetic about math. They are perfectly capable of expressing their own reactions, which may or may not - optionally, up to them - express their artistry or poetry. If you show me a painting, and I say "That's beautiful" just like the last 300 people you showed it to, I don't want anyone complaining, "But the whole reason I showed that to you is to find out whether rationalists had anything to say!"

1EniScien1y

This whole post looks very strange to me in comparison with other posts. If I am not misunderstanding it, I really disagree. I have very much parts of my brain which can generate sensible output for some input and very limited amount of attention to actually do that. So it seems to me like a very sensible ask to say something mathematical or say something as rationalist. Somebody who doesn't know math can easily just never think that he needs to think in some direction. For example, I can say "oh, well, it's projection of 3d on 2d and it follows such math" or "one of the main reasons why brain thinks something is beautiful is symmetry" or "as rationalist I for a long time thought that we need make pictures more useful, for example not put them into museams, but draw on wall everywhere, because currently walls are either plain or have ornaments of very low artistic quality" etc. Well, it may be harder to say as rationalist something that relates to some picture and only to that picture. Though "it's beautiful" is also can be said about very much pictures, not about one presented. It's really strange to hear that there is something wrong in ask to say something special as rationalist from the same person who said about not wanting to do anything in his fanfic same way as it was done in other fanfics because then it would be too cliche/unoriginal and will fail to transmit any Shennon information. Though I think it's indeed very suspicious when somebody "calls artists to participate" instead of hiring artists. P.S./Edited: I am not sure that it's the same idea as in g's comment. And I don't think that stereotypical idea of artist view will be correct in comparison with actual artist view any more than will be correct a stereotypical idea of "mathematician view" that you should do everything only with logic with no intuition. Also, I may compare ask for N's view instead of "your view as human" to ask for your 20th thought on topic instead of 1st thought. It may hav

It's a warning against making your identity big.

Let's take your example'

"oh, well, it's projection of 3d on 2d and it follows such math" or "one of the main reasons why brain thinks something is beautiful is symmetry" Though true, these seem like kinda dumb things to say about a painting? "Look at this picture!" "Ah yes, pictures, projections of 3D space onto a 2D plane" misses 99% of the point. Note that these are more useful if you are trying to create a painting, or analyzing the technical details of the painting (e.g. "wow what good linear perspectiv

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