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Fake Beliefs
by Eliezer Yudkowsky
11th Sep 2007
3 min read
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At the Singularity Summit 2007, one of the speakers called for democratic, multinational development of artificial intelligence. So I stepped up to the microphone and asked:

Suppose that a group of democratic republics form a consortium to develop AI, and there’s a lot of politicking during the process—some interest groups have unusually large influence, others get shafted—in other words, the result looks just like the products of modern democracies. Alternatively, suppose a group of rebel nerds develops an AI in their basement, and instructs the AI to poll everyone in the world—dropping cellphones to anyone who doesn’t have them—and do whatever the majority says. Which of these do you think is more “democratic,” and would you feel safe with either?

I wanted to find out whether he believed in the pragmatic adequacy of the democratic political process, or if he believed in the moral rightness of voting. But the speaker replied:

The first scenario sounds like an editorial in Reason magazine, and the second sounds like a Hollywood movie plot.

Confused, I asked:

Then what kind of democratic process did you have in mind?

The speaker replied:

Something like the Human Genome Project—that was an internationally sponsored research project.

I asked:

How would different interest groups resolve their conflicts in a structure like the Human Genome Project?

And the speaker said:

I don’t know.

This exchange puts me in mind of a quote from some dictator or other, who was asked if he had any intentions to move his pet state toward democracy:

We believe we are already within a democratic system. Some factors are still missing, like the expression of the people’s will.

The substance of a democracy is the specific mechanism that resolves policy conflicts. If all groups had the same preferred policies, there would be no need for democracy—we would automatically cooperate. The resolution process can be a direct majority vote, or an elected legislature, or even a voter-sensitive behavior of an artificial intelligence, but it has to be something. What does it mean to call for a “democratic” solution if you don’t have a conflict-resolution mechanism in mind?

I think it means that you have said the word “democracy,” so the audience is supposed to cheer. It’s not so much a propositional statement or belief, as the equivalent of the “Applause” light that tells a studio audience when to clap.

This case is remarkable only in that I mistook the applause light for a policy suggestion, with subsequent embarrassment for all. Most applause lights are much more blatant, and can be detected by a simple reversal test. For example, suppose someone says:

We need to balance the risks and opportunities of AI.

If you reverse this statement, you get:

We shouldn’t balance the risks and opportunities of AI.

Since the reversal sounds abnormal, the unreversed statement is probably normal, implying it does not convey new information.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons for uttering a sentence that would be uninformative in isolation. “We need to balance the risks and opportunities of AI” can introduce a discussion topic; it can emphasize the importance of a specific proposal for balancing; it can criticize an unbalanced proposal. Linking to a normal assertion can convey new information to a bounded rationalist—the link itself may not be obvious. But if no specifics follow, the sentence is probably an applause light.

I am tempted to give a talk sometime that consists of nothing but applause lights, and see how long it takes for the audience to start laughing:

I am here to propose to you today that we need to balance the risks and opportunities of advanced artificial intelligence. We should avoid the risks and, insofar as it is possible, realize the opportunities. We should not needlessly confront entirely unnecessary dangers. To achieve these goals, we must plan wisely and rationally. We should not act in fear and panic, or give in to technophobia; but neither should we act in blind enthusiasm. We should respect the interests of all parties with a stake in the Singularity. We must try to ensure that the benefits of advanced technologies accrue to as many individuals as possible, rather than being restricted to a few. We must try to avoid, as much as possible, violent conflicts using these technologies; and we must prevent massive destructive capability from falling into the hands of individuals. We should think through these issues before, not after, it is too late to do anything about them . . .

Applause LightAnticipated ExperiencesReversal TestTribalismSocial & Cultural DynamicsRationality
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[-]Ray2086 Response to previous version

You have, I think, come upon the essence of modern political speeches.

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[-]theguyfromoverthere400 Response to previous version

I was going to say this as well. Your last paragraph here is like every presidential speech that I've ever watched.

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5Lavender
Lorem Ipsum
[-]David_J._Balan20 Response to previous version

The democracy booster probably meant that people with little political power should not be ignored. And that's not an empty statement; people with little political power are ignored all the time.

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[-]Gray210 Response to previous version

Actually, that seems to be an extremely empty statement. "Having little political power" seems to imply, and is implied by, "being ignored". I wouldn't doubt that the two predicates are coextensive. Since people with little political power are, by definition, ignored; saying that people with little political power should not be ignored makes as much sense as saying that squares should be circular.

But maybe I'm not being very charitable here. You can make the shape that was once square more circular, only as long as you note that the shape isn't a square anymore. Similarly, people with little political power can, over time, gain more political power, which is a positive thing. But even if everyone has an equal amount of political power, the proposition that "people with little political power are ignored" would still be true, even if the predicates contain the null set.

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8CuSithBell
I disagree. Even if your interpretation of these terms were accurate, "the elements of this set should (in the future) not be elements of this set" isn't an empty statement. Second, a benevolent dictator (or, say, an FAI) could certainly advance the interests of a group with absolutely no say in what said dictator does.
[-]Gray230 Response to previous version

Eeek, I think the differences in interpretations are due to the de re / de dicto distinction.

Compare the following translations of the statement "people without political power should not be ignored."

De dicto: "It should not be the case that any person without political power is also a person who is ignored."

De re: "If there is a person without political power, then that person should not be ignored."

If the two predicates in the de re interpretation ("person without political power" and "person who is ignored") are coextensive, and thus equivalent, we should be able to substitute like terms and derive "If there is a person without political power, then that person should not be without political power." Given that I wanted to use the more charitable interpretation, this is the interpretation I should use, and so you're correct :)

But look what happens to the de dicto interpretation when you substitute like terms. It turns into "It should not be the case that a person without political power is a person without political power." This is the sort of thing I was objecting to, to begin with. But it was the wrong i... (read more)

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2CuSithBell
Huh! Thanks for the thorough analysis :) I'd say the most likely intent behind the statement is that people with direct political power should use it for the benefit of those without direct political power - i.e. elected officials and so forth should provide support for minority groups without much voting power. In which case your initial thought that they intended a "de dicto" reading could be right! Did I tip my hand about being a mathematician by mentioning set theory? ;)
2PhilGoetz
How is that de re and de dicto?
[-]Robin_Hanson2771 Response to previous version

Alas, for most audiences I think you would find no one laughing even after an entire applause light speech.

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[-]patrissimo731 Response to previous version

Yeah, but you'd get lots of applause!

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[-]Matt_Simpson222 Response to previous version

Evidence: any graduation speech I've ever been subject to.

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[-]Chrysophylax332 Response to previous version

I tried this for my valedictoral speech and I gave up after about 15 seconds due to the laughter.

My preferred method is to use long sentences, to speak slowly and seriously, with great emphasis, and to wave my hands in small circles as I speak. If you don't speak to this audience regularly, it is also a good idea to emphasise how grateful you are to be asked to speak on such an important occasion (and it is a very important occasion...). You get bonus points for using the phrase "just so chuffed", especially if you use it repeatedly (a technique I learned from my old headmaster, who never expressed satisfaction in any other way while giving speeches).

I also recommend this technique, this way of speaking, to anyone who wishes to wind up, by which I mean annoy or irritate, a family member. It's quite effective when used consistently, even if you only do it for a minute or two. Don't you agree?

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[-]Peter_de_Blanc120 Response to previous version

I remember at the AGIRI workshop in DC last year, Alexei Samsonovich talked about sorting a list of English words along two dimensions - "valence" and "arousal," indicating some component of the emotional response which words evoke.

Maybe audiences respond to speeches by summing the emotion vectors of each word in the speech, rather than parsing sentences.

Quick test: who here is excited by the prospects of anthropic quantum computing?

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[-]Arthur1981251 Response to previous version

What I find interesting is that there are some obvious parallels between applause lights and Barnum statements - so named after P.T. Barnum.

Barnum statements are essentially statements which anyone can apply to themselves as true, which essentially say nothing, and which feel unique to each individual hearing themselves described that way.

Barnum statements are a stock-in-trade of cold-readers such as mentalists and psychics. It seems to me that applause lights are nothing more than the abstract, impersonal version of the same phenomena; or perhaps the same phenomena used in a rhetorical and ideological application.

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1papetoast
Seems like Barnum states and applause lights are both vague, hidden tautologies
3JohnWittle
anthropic quantum computing? if i were flipping through the channels and heard that phrase uttered by someone who looked like he was giving a speech, i would be immediate interested in learning more and would definitely stay on the channel. I have no idea what the phrase means, but my immediate guesses are indeed exciting.
4Shmi
I'd think that it came out of a random abstract generator like snarxiv.
[-]Vladimir_Nesov230 Response to previous version

Such speech could theoretically perform "bringing to attention" function. Chunks of "bringing to attention" are equivalent to any kind of knowledge, it's just an inefficient form, and abnormality of that speech in its utter inefficiency, not lack of content. People can bear such talk as similar inefficiency can be present in other talks in different form. Inefficiency makes it much simpler to obfuscate eluding certain topics.

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[-]michael_vassar3290 Response to previous version

I'm pretty sure that many people and organizations routinely DO argue that "we shouldn't balance the risks and opportunities of X". In ethics, deontological systems claim this. In policy, environmentalists are the first example that spring to mind, though they have been getting substantially better in the last few years. Radical pacifists like Gandhi have often been praised for asserting that people should not balance the risks and opportunities of war. More broadly, display of this attitude seems to me to be necessary for anyone who is attempting to portray that they are extraordinarily "virtuous" as virtue is normally understood, at least in our broadly Christian derived civilization. I actually think that it would be a good idea to try presenting all applause lights, but I think that it has been done. "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense" claims in the appendix that such a speech has been written and presented to applause on a variety of topics. It seems to me though that the speech you were proposing above was actually an endorsement of a reasonable set of meta-policies which are in fact generally not engaged in, and was thus substantive, not empty, so I'm not sure it counts.

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2Matt Vincent
Statements of the sort "we shouldn't balance the risks and opportunities of X" are substantive only where X is closely related to a fundamental principle or a terminal goal. Since nobody really wants superhuman AGI for its own sake (in fact, it's just the opposite: it's the ultimate instrumental goal), "we should balance the risks and opportunities of AGI" is an applause light.
[-]Anders_Sandberg40 Response to previous version

David's comment that we shouldn't ignore people with little political power is a bit problematic. People who are not ignored in a political process have by definition some political power; whoever is ignored lacks power. So the meaning becomes "people who are ignored are ignored all the time". The only way to handle it is to never ignore anybody on anything. So please tell me your views on whether Solna muncipality in Sweden should spend more money on the stairs above the station, or a traffic light - otherwise the decision will not be fully demo... (read more)

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1bigjeff5
Perhaps a better word would be "train".
2papetoast
I dont think your 'bias' usage is an applause light, even though the reverse of the state is abnormal. The reason being that this state is a predictive statement and not a moral statement.
[-]Luke_G.320 Response to previous version

Eliezer's nothing-but-applause-lights speech sounds strangely like every State of the Union address I've ever heard...

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1NickRetallack
When I click that link, my browser downloads a file called redirect.php.
[-]Michael_Rooney40 Response to previous version

Rather than just "applause lights", sloganeering often is a cue to group-identification. Cf. postmodern text generators.

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[-]J_Thomas00 Response to previous version

"The democracy booster probably meant that people with little political power should not be ignored. And that's not an empty statement; people with little political power are ignored all the time."

But isn't it precisely the people with little political power who can most safely be ignored?

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4bigjeff5
In standard democracy, yes, that is the case. Perfect democracy is pure majority rule. Through history we have learned that this is probably the worst possible idea for a form of government. The mob has no concern for those who are not in the mob, and the apathy of the crowd can lead to some horrific consequences for those in the minority. This is why most democracies are not really democracies, but have strong constraints that boost the power of the weakest members to prevent them from being overruled on every decision, while still giving the majority the larger share of the power. For example, in the US the democratic process is split between two houses, The House of Representatives, which is population based and represents majority rule, and The Senate, for which each state gets only two representatives regardless of population. That balances the power while still giving the majority the majority of the power. It's constraints similar to this (everyone does it differently, the point is that you always need to do it) that allow democratically based systems to work. In the US we also put in a president to make sure things get done, and then went as far outside the democratic system as the founders were comfortable with to install the third constraint on the system - the courts. It could work just fine if there were plenty of well thought out constraints on it, but "democracy" by itself probably would not work at all; it rarely ever does. Therefore, saying "democracy" without any intention of discussing it is clearly just an applause word. Either that, or the man was totally ignorant. Leave it to someone like that to require the absolute destruction of a major effort like AGI just to learn the pitfalls of democracy that have been learned over and over and over again.
0omeganaut
But that in now way implies that they should be ignored.
-1thomblake
It at least to some extent implies that they should be ignored. To illustrate: Someone who is has great political power should not be ignored. This statement is not vacuous; it is instead making a worthwhile statement of fact. Given that, we know that people who do not have great political power should be ignored to a greater extent than people who do have great political power. Thus, that one does not have great political power (at least weakly) implies that one should be ignored (ceteris paribus). This contradicts the claim "That in no way implies that they should be ignored" (emphasis added). As a side note, the comment you're responding to was left in 2007, and even on a different website. As a general rule, unless you're making a significant contribution, it's not worth responding to comments that were left before 2009. If you do believe the parent comment is a worthwhile contribution, I'd suggest correcting "now" to "no" (assuming that's what you meant).
[-]James_Bach40 Response to previous version

Curiously Eliezer, I feel like applauding. Good post.

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[-]Shakespeare's_Fool00 Response to previous version

Eliezer,

Thank you for the quotation:

"We believe that we are already living in a democracy, although some factors are still missing, such as the expression of the people's will"

I hope someone can tell us who said it.

John

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[-]Patri_Friedman10 Response to previous version

It might not convey information, but I bet you could get thunderous applause. Often, the latter outweighs the former when it comes t the goals of a speech.

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[-]jeff_gray260 Response to previous version

link to 1981 Time magazine interview with the president of Argentina - source of Eliezer's quote about democracy absent the people's will.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954853,00.html?promoid=googlep

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[-]Leonard30 Response to previous version

The substance of a democracy is the specific mechanism that resolves policy conflicts. ... What does it mean to call for a "democratic" solution if you don't have a conflict-resolution mechanism in mind?
I think that for many people the "substance" of democracy is not the specific mechanism, but rather the general mechanism, and the nature of the output. The mechanism must include at least some formal representation of every member. The details of this don't matter so much: it might be direct voting (strictly equal power), or it might... (read more)

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0pnrjulius
But what is really that it didn't MATTER, or simply that he didn't KNOW? I think it was the latter---what's more, it didn't even occur to him to ask the question. He seemed to think that saying "democratic" was enough.
[-]Miguel90 Response to previous version

I know where your quote came from: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954853,00.html?promoid

It's from "President Roberto Eduardo Viola, formerly Argentina's army commander in chief".

It's an answer to the first question in the interview:

"Q. How soon do you expect Argentina to be returned to democratic government?

A. We believe we are already within a democratic system. Some factors are still missing, like the expression of the people's will, but nevertheless we still think we are within a democracy. We say so because we believe t... (read more)

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[-]Alan_Crowe00 Response to previous version

[rhetorical pose] We shouldn't balance the risks and opportunities of AI. Enthusiasts for AI are biased. They under estimate the difficulties. They would not be so enthusiastic if they grasped how disappointing progress is likely to be. Detractors of AI are also biased. They under estimate the difficulties too. You will have a hard time convincing them of the difficulties, because you would be trying to pursuade them that they had been frightened of shadows.

So there are few opportunities which are likely to be altogether lost if we hang back through unnec... (read more)

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3bigjeff5
I don't get that at all. If "We shouldn't balance the risks and opportunities of AI" means they are being assessed incorrectly, isn't that a part of balancing the risks and opportunities of AI? I don't see how you can get that out of the statement. If they are being done incorrectly, then in the discussion of the risks and opportunities you say "No, you're doing it wrong, you need to look at it like this blah blah blah". When you say "We shouldn't balance the risks and opportunities of AI" it means to stop making an assessment altogether. It says nothing about continuing to go forward with the project or not. It doesn't say "Stop the project! This is all wrong!" That would fall under balancing the risks and opportunities - an assessment that came against AI. That's foolishness, which is why no one would ever utter the phrase in the first place. That makes the prior phrase an applause phrase, because it is obvious to anyone involved that such an assessment is necessary. You're only saying it because you know people will nod their head in agreement and possibly clap.
2Polymeron
It would make sense in the context of a strong bias toward a specific outcome, e.g. religious indignation toward an idea. A person believing that thinking machines are an abomination would tell you to stop assessing and forget the whole idea. A person believing that AI is the only thing that could possibly rescue us from imminent catastrophe might well tell you to stop analyzing the risks and get on with building the AI before it's too late. Either position would have a substantive position that you don't need to balance the risks and opportunities any further, without claiming that you have some error in your assessment.
0bigjeff5
Yet building an AI that eventually destroys all mankind, even after it averts this particular looming catastrophe, could easily be the worse choice. Does the catastrophe we need AI for outweigh the potential dangers of a poorly built AI? It must still be considered. You may not have time to consider it thoroughly (as time is now a factor to consider), and that must be part of your assessment, but you still have to weigh the new risks against the potential reward. Same with the abomination. Upon what basis is it an abomination? What are the consequences if we create the abomination? Do we spend a few extra years in purgatory, or do we burn in hell for all eternity? It still must be considered. A few years in purgatory for a creation that saves mankind from the invading squid monsters may very much be worth doing. Consider the atomic bomb before the first live tests. There were real concerns that splitting the atom could create an unstoppable chain of events which would set the very air on fire, destroying the whole world in that single moment. I can't really imagine a scenario that is more dire, and more strongly argues for the ceasing of all argument. Yet they did the math anyway, considered the risks (tiny chance of blowing up the world) vs the reward (ending the war that is guaranteed to kill millions more people), and decided it was worth it to continue. I still see no rational case for ever halting argument, except in the case of time for assessment simply running out (if you don't act before X, the world blows up - obviously you must finish your assessment before X or it was all pointless). You may weigh the risks vs the opportunities and decide the risks are too great, and decide not to continue. However, you can not rationally cease all argument without consideration because of a particularly strong or dire argument. To do so is irrational.
1Polymeron
Of course you can cease argument without consideration - if you deem the risks of continuing consideration to outweigh the benefits of weighing them. For instance, if you have 1 minute to try something that would save your life, and you require at least 5 minutes to properly assess anything further, you generally can't afford to weigh whether the idea would result in a worse situation somehow - beyond whatever assessment you have already made. At that point, the time for assessment is over. For the most part, however, I agree with your point. I did not argue that one can rationally disagree with the statement "We need to balance the risks and opportunities of AI"; just that they can sincerely say it, and even argue for it. This was a response to you saying that "no one would ever utter the phrase in the first place". This just strikes me as false. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity ;)
2bigjeff5
You're right, in that regard I was certainly mistaken.
2Viktor Riabtsev
Upvoted for the "oops" moment.
[-]Venkat20 Response to previous version

That was kinda hilarious. I like your reversal test to detect content-free tautologies. Since I am working right now on a piece of AI-political-fiction (involving voting rights for artificial agents and questions that raises), I was thrown for a moment, but then tuned in to what YOU were talking about.

The 'Yes, Minister' and 'Yes, Prime Minister' series is full of extended pieces of such content-free dialog.

More seriously though, this is a bit of a strawman attack on the word 'democracy' being used as decoration/group dynamics cueing. You kinda blind-sided... (read more)

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[-]Jamais_Cascio160 Response to previous version

C'mon, Eliezar, be fair: identify who the speaker was that you "probed" in this way, so that people can find the recordings of the talk and exchange at singinst.org to decide for themselves how it went.

As you have it above, aside from the paraphrasing, you omit a couple of important parts of my replies. With regards to the Reason/Hollywood comparison, I go on to say:

"That is, they're both caricatures, and neither one is terribly plausible or complete. There would be some critical benefits to the messy process of the first scenario, and some important drawbacks to the second."

With regards to the "I don't know," I then say:

"This is a point I've tried to make a couple of times here: this is not a solved problem, but it's an important problem, and we need to figure out how to address it."

I certainly did not talk about democracy with any intent of it serving as "applause lights" for my talk -- in fact, given the audience, I expected a semi-hostile response, given my argument against the kind of "rebel nerd" heroism self-image a lot of the AGI community seems to have.

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[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky170 Response to previous version

BTW, if anyone wants to go to singinst.org and download the audio, you'll note that the actual event did not occur the exact way I remembered it, which should surprise no one here who knows anything about human memory. In particular, Cascio spontaneously provided the Genome Project example, rather than needing to be asked for it.

Generally, the reason I avoid identifying the characters in my examples is that it feels to me like I'm dumping all the sins of humankind upon their undeserving heads - I'm presenting one error, out of context, as exemplar for all the errors of this kind that have ever been committed, and showing none of the good qualities of the speaker - it would be like caricaturing them, if I called them by name.

That said, the reason why I picked this example is that, in fact, I was thinking of Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" while writing this post. And as Orwell said:

In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim t... (read more)

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-1David Scott Krueger (formerly: capybaralet)
Really bad example... My impression is that democracy is seeing a sharp uptick in attacks from elites and intellectuals. There are many who now believe, e.g., that the US should be more like China (see: the success of Trump). As the speaker noted, he expected his speech to be controversial in that crowd, and in a way, it was, as evidenced by this blog post :)
[-]Fyrius310 Response to previous version

Hum.

When I hear the sort of thing you would call "applause lights", I don't always think of that as an obvious fact that everyone in their right mind would agree on. Rather, I get the impression the speaker is implying that someone they strongly disagree with does believe this obvious fact is not true, or that this ridiculous notion is.

If for example I hear someone say "we shouldn't be hugging criminals, we should be locking them up", I interpret that as a very one-sided opposition to a grossly misrepresented opponent who goes a bit easier on convicts. Of course this person wouldn't literally believe the reverse that "we should be hugging criminals instead of locking them up", but she might believe something that a bigot could paraphrase as such with a straight face.

I think this is also the reason why the speaker's supporters applaud to statements like that - it implies the issue is very simple and clear-cut, only one side (ours) is remotely sensible, and you'd have to be insane to disagree. One-sidedness feels good. Very blatant one-sidedness feels even better.

(Excuse me if this has been said already.)

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3NancyLebovitz
I haven't seen it laid out so clearly anywhere. The only thing I'd add is that it's very easy to fall into that error reflexively. It isn't generally a matter of conscious strategy.
1pnrjulius
Hence, an applause light is a form of strawman argumentation? That sounds about right actually.
1Fyrius
It can be used for that, at least.
[-]DSimon130 Response to previous version

(Hi everyone; this is my first time posting here.)

If someone delivered that 100%-applause-light paragraph to me in a speech, my first impulse would be to interpret it as an honest attempt to remind the audience of obvious but not necessarily currently-in-context ideas. For example, this statement from the middle:

"To achieve these goals, we must plan wisely and rationally. We should not act in fear and panic, or give in to technophobia; but neither should we act in blind enthusiasm."

Taken literally as a set of assertions, this really is quite empty of novel or unexpected content. However, directed at an audience of humans, aware of but still vulnerable to cognitive bias, the statement above implies another statement which is more useful: "We should be careful to not act like who, despite intending not to, panicked rather than thinking productively. We should also be careful to not act like whose enthusiasm overwhelmed their necessary sense of caution, even though they knew the value of that caution."

People who agree with the part of the 1st virtue that says "A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth" may still sometimes need to be reminded to check themselves and make sure they're doing the former rather than the latter.

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[-]Document30 Response to previous version

This sounds similar to the idea of a "motherhood statement" as defined here.

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3pnrjulius
That second definition applies to most depictions of transhumanism in fiction. It's the rare author who is bold enough to say, "The implants that we put in our brains? Yeah, they actually make us better."
1TheOtherDave
Pretty much all the fiction I read in which brain implants are mentioned at all treat them as improvements.
1pnrjulius
Really? Got any examples? I've read some in which the transhuman technologies were ambiguous (had upsides and downsides), but I can't think of any where it was just better, the way that actual technologies often are---would any of us willingly go back to the days before electricity and running water?
3Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)
Having upsides and downsides isn't the same thing as being ambiguous. Running water and electricity do have downsides–namely, depletion of water tables due to overuse, and pollution, resource depletion, and possibly global warming due in part to the efforts required to make electricity...But I wouldn't say that either technology is ambiguous. The advantages pretty clearly outweigh the disadvantages, which are avoidable with some thought and creativity.
2TheOtherDave
Most of Peter Hamilton's stuff comes to mind, for example. Implants are just another technology, treated no differently than guns or cars. The Greg Mandel books have a few characters who do end up with implants that they would prefer not to have, but they're the exceptions.
2Nornagest
Well, they're hardly common, but anarcho-primitivists do exist.
0Hul-Gil
I find that a little irritating - for people supposedly open to new ideas, science fiction authors sure seem fearful and/or disapproving of future technology.
1Nornagest
Part of me thinks that that's encoded into the metaphorical DNA of the SF genre (or one branch of it) at a very basic level. It's been conventional for a while to think of SF as Enlightenment and the rest of spec-fic as Romantic, but the history of the genre's actually more complicated than that; Mary Shelley, for example, definitely fell on the Romantic side of the fence, and later writers haven't exactly been shy about following her lead. The treading-in-God's-domain motif is a powerful one, and it's the bedrock that an awful lot of SF is built on.
2taelor
Obligatory Link
[-]bigjeff530 Response to previous version

Oy, now that you've said it, I hear speeches like that at the end all the time. Whole discussion between opposing sides even. Perhaps that's why I haven't been able to stand cable news for a while now?

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[-]Polymeron280 Response to previous version

When I first read this, I imagined a favorite politician (I won't mention who) giving this mock speech.

To my embarrassment, I found myself nodding in completely genuine enthusiasm. This guy clearly knows what he's talking about!

(This in turn made me consider just how much of this politician's speeches was similarly composed. I came to the conclusion that quite a significant amount of it was)

...Nobody ever told me cognitive bias would be this annoying!

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5TheOtherDave
Upvoted because I endorse the willingness to notice one's own biases. So, next question, if you're willing: what are three things you could do to reduce the degree to which this sort of empty rhetoric leads you to endorse the speaker?
[-]Polymeron130 Response to previous version

TheOtherDave, that is a very constructive approach :)

I am already prone to requiring policy specifics from politicians and being dissatisfied with vague points. But one thing I (and many others) do have is a tendency to note, when hearing a few specifics in a sea of "general direction" applause cues, is that my own preference for solutions is compatible with the speech; and from compatibility, I get hope that they would implement it - despite a lack of evidence that they're even aware of such a solution, much less want to implement it. So this is something to be cautious of and to note mid-speech.

I could go further and try to strike from mental record anything that isn't specifics, making a point-by-point list of substantive statements. An easy way to do this is ask "is anyone really considering doing otherwise? No? Then it doesn't count. Yes? Then why are they?" This method might not always be wise - motivations and beliefs are also important in trying to predict a politician's future choices they did not yet address, and the speech can pronounce those. However it would be a good mental exercise when trying to evaluate positions on a specific policy question.

La... (read more)

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6TheOtherDave
I definitely endorse tracking specific proposals/substantive assertions, and explicitly labeling vague or empty assertions that nevertheless elicit positive feelings or invite you to project your own preferences onto the speaker. I definitely endorse asking the "is anyone really considering doing otherwise, and why?" question. Something I also find useful is explicitly labeling implied affiliations. E.g., consider the difference between "we need to prepare our children with the tools they need to be leaders in the 21st century," versus "we need to instill our children with the values they need to make the right choices in the 21st century." They are both empty statements -- I mean, who would ever claim otherwise? -- but in the U.S. today the former signals affiliation with teachers and thereby implies support for public schools, education funding, etc., while the latter signals something I understand less clearly. And those in turn signal alliances with major political parties, because it's understood by most U.S. voters that party A is more closely tied to education and party B to values. In fact, even if the statement includes a specific proposal, it is often worth labeling the implied affiliation.
1pnrjulius
It's interesting; with the connotations and associations in our discourse, I can actually make some predictions about planned policies from those two supposedly "empty" statements. The former is probably going to spend more money on math and science education. The latter is probably going to fund "faith-based initiatives" or something similarly silly and religious (but I repeat myself), because "values" in American politics is almost always code for "conservative Evangelical Christianity". So does this mean that they really aren't empty at all?
1TheOtherDave
Well, yes, I chose those statements precisely because of their connotative affiliations. As for whether they're really empty... (shrug). In ordinary conversation I would consider "I like likable things!" an empty statement, but of course it conveys an enormous amount of information: that I am capable of constructing a grammatical English sentence, for example, which the Vast majority of equivalent-mass aggregations of particles in the universe are not. I can use a different term to describe that category of statement if this one is too ambiguous.
[-]Ronny Fernandez10 Response to previous version

"Applause Light" is a wonderful name for that tactic; it's funny, catchy, and makes the problem with that tactic intuitively obvious. That term should be further proliferated throughout the internet if it hasn't already been. Adding that meme to the average internet goer's repertoire could have wonderful side-effects on the support decisions of people in meat space everywhere.

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[-]MarkusRamikin30 Response to previous version

That applause-light speech at the end just needs some variation, and I'm pretty sure it would fly. I'd replace about half of the "we should" with something else, like "it is important that we", and "it would be dangerous to neglect" and so on, because right now it's so repetitive that surely a lot of people would notice and realize what's being done.

Or maybe i'm yet again overestimating my fellow human beings, as past experience says I am prone to do...

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[-]Jeremygbyrne00 Response to previous version

I am tempted to give a talk sometime that consists of nothing but applause lights

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxMqSdgB-uA (appropriately titled "Unthink").

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[-]jeromeapura00 Response to previous version

You got him on nice Socratic question. Well, a good question seeks good idea and eliminate inane idea. Nice

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[-]Matvey_Ezhov-10 Response to previous version

There might be one another case: in casual conversation, something that looks like an applause light, could be just expression of recent insights of a particular person on the subject. Like, he just yesterday deduced (based on some fragments of rational texts on the web) that we should balance risks and opportunities of this. Or, maybe the audience level on the subject is so low that even the applause-like statements do convey some information.

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[-]buybuydandavis-10 Response to previous version

"Let's do everything right."

Yep. Standard political speech.

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[-]Maha10 Response to previous version

I don't think these statements are entirely vacuous. Even when their content is little more than a tautology, their actual meaning is something else entirely, at least in politics; they represent that the speaker is aware of the jargon, willing to use it, essentially moderate/"pragmatic" and prone to maintaining the status quo.

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[-]macronencer00 Response to previous version

I couldn't resist adding another link as an example of a speech that seems to consist almost entirely of applause lights. This one is vintage Peter Sellers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxBtGuu9BVE

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[-]taelor40 Response to previous version

Applause Lights also have more sinister, dark artsy application: they can be used to bait people into agreeing with seemingly trivial propositions, which nevertheless cause the target to modify their self image, rendering them more likely to agree with less trivial propositions in the future. For example, Cialdini's Influence reports on a study that found that households that had been visited by a volunteer collecting signatures in favor of the vague statement "keep California beautiful" (without ever specifying how this was to be accomplished) w... (read more)

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[-]olalonde00 Response to previous version

can convey new information to a bounded rationalist

Why limit it to bounded rationalists?

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[-]PhilGoetz30 Response to previous version

How would different interest groups resolve their conflicts in a structure like the Human Genome Project?

Oh, my, the unintentional humor of that speaker's comment. There's an entire book written on how groups resolved their conflicts in the Human Genome Project, The Genome War: They didn't. The outcome was a horrific case study of how science really "works" today.

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[-]poi9950 Response to previous version

You'll often see feminists on the Internet pointing out how just about everyone seems to be in favor of "gender equality" and yet hardly anyone of either gender self-identifies as feminist anymore, even though gender equality is what feminism claims to be all about.

This article explains that disconnect. "Equality" is an applause light. It's something we can all agree is great in the abstract, but as soon as someone starts talking specifics, the applause thins and we all go back to being polarized again because everyone's idea of what equality, especially social and economic equality, actually entails is different.

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[-]Nisan50 Response to previous version

"I am here to propose to you today that we need to balance the risks and opportunities of advanced Artificial Intelligence..."

Seven years later, this open letter was signed by leaders of the field. It's amusing how similar it is to the above speech, especially considering how it actually marked a major milestone in the advancement of the field of AI safety.

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[-]Jiro10 Response to previous version

Then what kind of democratic process did you have in mind?

The speaker replied:

Something like the Human Genome Project—that was an internationally sponsored research project.

I asked:

How would different interest groups resolve their conflicts in a structure like the Human Genome Project?

And the speaker said:

I don't know.

In this old post, Eliezer is being insufficiently charitable and not steelmanning.

It is possible that I know that X can do A, but I don't know how X can do A. "Look at X and do A similarly to that" may be a reasona... (read more)

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[-]zby20 Response to previous version

Sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_signifier

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[-]Robin Caesar60 Response to previous version

Hi, i made this german translation if anyone is interested:

Applaus-Lichter

Pseudo-Überzeugungen

Von Eliezer_Yudkowsky

11. September 2007

Auf dem Singularity Summit 2007 rief einer der Redner zu einer demokratischen, multinationalen Entwicklung der KI auf. Also trat ich ans Mikrofon und fragte:

Angenommen, eine Gruppe demokratischer Republiken bildet ein Konsortium zur Entwicklung der KI, und während des Prozesses gibt es viel politisches Taktieren - einige Interessengruppen haben einen ungewöhnlich großen Einfluss, andere werden über den Tisch gezogen - mit... (read more)

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[-]xSciFix20
I am tempted to give a talk sometime that consists of nothing but applause lights, and see how long it takes for the audience to start laughing:

I'm reminded of your Tom Riddle a bit heh.

I think "a speech that consists of nothing but applause lights" pretty much applies to 99% of political discourse these days and instead being amused at how long it takes the audience to realize you'd be embittered at how seriously everyone took the whole exercise. Maybe I have some bias to sort out but I think the actual content of what is being said often matters very little to most people, as long as you hit the right buzzwords and look convincing/confident.

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[-]Omeg80
I am here to propose to you today that we should not balance the risks and opportunities of advanced artificial intelligence. We should welcome the risks and remain blind to opportunities. We should needlessly confront entirely unnecessary dangers. To achieve these goals, we must plan stupidly and irrationally. We should act in fear and panic, and give in to technophobia; alternatively, we should act in blind enthusiasm. We should only respect the interests of some parties with a stake in the Singularity. We must try to ensure that the benefits of advanced
... (read more)
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[-]astralbrane00

"do whatever the majority says" is not democracy.

True democracy finds the solution that maximizes the utility of all the voters, not maximizing the utility of half while completely ignoring the other half.

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-1jeronimo196
As do true communism. Has there ever been such a democracy? How did it found out the utility for all its voters? Sounds to me like a "no true Scotsman" encompassing all known government systems. I think you should modify your statement to something like "A democracy should try and protect the interests of its minorities, as well as those of the majority."
[-]Art Vandele10

I think it's possible that there's another purpose to these kinds of statements. When someone says, "We must acknowledge the potential risks and benefits of AGI," they're signalling - at least in principle - that they're aware that there *are* both risks and benefits to AGI.

So its purpose is in some cases as a signal to listeners that the speaker has avoided ideological possession at least long enough to acknowledge the existence of factors on more than one side of an argument.

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[-]toothpaste10

It's hard to judge this particular case without context, but such sentences can be valid if they convey a general direction a person wants something to move on in a situation where they can't or shouldn't be overspecific, for example if they don't know much about the specific subject, or if they want to remain on topic during a talk about a particular issue.

For example, I could say "it's time someone developed a machine that is able to fetch things around the house and bring them to us". It doesn't mean I know anything about engineering or about how this m... (read more)

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[-]outside_path10

Back in the day I would've agreed and thought that indeed the last paragraph was prime example of political speech with nothing inside it. After recent years in politics, I wouldn't be suprised to see leaders in certain countries make a very different speech about AI. So perhaps it is indeed useful to have these kinds of speeches, just to signal that there is still reason in this world.

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[-]Azgerod20

When you get down to it, all politics is about conflict resolution. That's not particular to democracy.

Democracy can be viewed as a government in which policy decisions are intended to reflect the will of the people, as opposed to, for example, the will of the nobility, or a single ruler. When people say that a set of decisions should be made democratically, they mean that the conflict resolution mechanism should be such that the decisions made are reflective of the will of the people.

I think the speaker advocating for a democratic, multinational push for ... (read more)

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[-]Noosphere8911

Yes, I would do a modern democracy, because of one fact that is shown in stark relief by the Ukraine War: Democracy isn't perfect, but is usually immune to the unilateralist's curse and is better at governance than any other system we've tried.

To quote Churchill: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other systems we've tried.

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[-]ninja_catfish10

Claude Opus is, unsurprisingly, excellent at writing these: 

'My fellow citizens, we are gathered here today to address the critical issue of ensuring the stability and fairness of our financial markets. It is essential that we implement prudent regulations to protect consumers, investors, and indeed our entire economy. We must strive to prevent the reckless speculation and unchecked greed that can lead to devastating financial crises.

At the same time, we should not unnecessarily stifle the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation that are the engines of ... (read more)

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