linkhyrule5 comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 109 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Gondolinian 23 February 2015 08:05PM

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Comment author: linkhyrule5 23 February 2015 08:22:50PM *  4 points [-]

I see. "Heart's desire" indeed.

So... Atlantis managed a neutral AI? But see convergence of methods - I'd expect a hypothetical NAI to be considerably harder to build than an FAI.

(Also, nice Duane shout-out.) In what sense is Altantean Magic more like Wizardry than post-Antlantean magic, though? Just the bits about making the Holy Grail as opposed to merely operating it?

(Heh. True Magic.)

Even Riddle would wish to be happy, I think. Or rather, if he knew more, was more capable, and was more the sort of person he wants to be... he would wish to be happy and immortal. Why not, after all?

I wonder how Dumbledore turned that into a trap, though?

For that matter, if Harry is right and Aberforth has the stone... there is another way of getting it, if this one is copy. There's more than one way to see someone who's dead, after all.

Comment author: Bugmaster 23 February 2015 09:11:55PM 2 points [-]

Also, nice Duane shout-out.

As well as the Mass Effect shout-out. ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 23 February 2015 09:03:56PM 2 points [-]

I thought EY said there would be no AI analogy, and yet the mirror clearly is an AI (and it seems more FAI to me than NAI)

Well, I suppose he changed his mind.

With relatively little support, the tiny handful of would-be makers of this device labored under working conditions that were not so much dramatically arduous, as pointlessly annoying.

Are MIRI's working conditions pointlessly annoying?

Comment author: SilentCal 23 February 2015 10:20:35PM 4 points [-]

If anyone has the exact wording of the no-AI promise, I'd like to examine it.

Comment author: Unknowns 24 February 2015 08:08:17PM 3 points [-]

Eliezer: Slightly edited the original post to avoid giving away what my readers have finally convinced me is, in fact, an undesirable spoiler. I also hope you didn't mind my removing the mention of FAI, because I feel fairly strongly about not mixing that into the fic. "A fanatic is someone who can't change their mind and won't change the subject"; if we can't shut up about FAI while talking about Harry Potter, we may have a problem.

(http://lesswrong.com/lw/2ab/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/22cq)

Comment author: Vulture 24 February 2015 05:53:27PM 3 points [-]

Working from memory, I believe that when asked about AI in the story, Eliezer said "they say a crackpot is someone who won't change his mind and won't change the subject -- I endeavor to at least change the subject." Obviously this is non-binding, but it still seems odd to me that he would go ahead and do the whole thing that he did with the mirror.

Comment author: CronoDAS 24 February 2015 02:36:53AM 2 points [-]

He said "Harry will not build an FAI"...

Comment author: dxu 24 February 2015 04:47:54AM 1 point [-]

Source?

(Not that I don't believe you; I've just never been able to find where EY says this.)

Comment author: CronoDAS 24 February 2015 10:13:13PM 0 points [-]

I think I heard it from him personally at a meet up...

Comment author: linkhyrule5 23 February 2015 09:34:14PM 2 points [-]

It's not an FAI, it hasn't taken over and promptly saved the world yet.

Well, I suppose this could all be a very slow plan on its part, but that would be boring, so it's probably magically charged to not do that, in some better-than-English conceptual way.

And well, insofar as they're trying to save the world and no major government cares to throw large quantities of public funds at them.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 24 February 2015 07:19:37AM 0 points [-]

It's not an FAI, it hasn't taken over and promptly saved the world yet.

So its not a superhuman FAI. But the Atlanteans were working on superhuman FAI.

Comment author: closeness 24 February 2015 10:42:50AM 1 point [-]

Maybe the AI was asked to make the world safe for wizards and figured it was easier to make an entire new world for them than make safe a Muggle dominated one.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 24 February 2015 01:11:22PM 0 points [-]

Also, nice Duane shout-out.

Reference please? I haven't read much of Diane Duane (assuming that's the Duane).

Comment author: linkhyrule5 24 February 2015 03:20:22PM 1 point [-]

So You Want to Be a Wizard is the name of a Duane book, the first in the Young Wizardry series.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 23 February 2015 08:25:58PM 0 points [-]

Also, under the assumption that Eliezer reads these threads - usually, the critique is anchored on Harry, but moves on to poking at Draco's little-professor-ness. Though I'm sure there are plenty of idiots who go on about Harry not being eleven, most of the intelligent detractors I've taught to quickly move on.

I'm sure that they're anchored by Harry's not-normal-ness, but at least they don't keep pushing that once it's pointed out that Harry is intended to be Voldemort.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 23 February 2015 09:58:42PM 0 points [-]

Am I the only one who thinks it's not realistic that an eleven-year-old in the 1990s hasn't had any dirty thoughts?

Comment author: avichapman 24 February 2015 05:44:43AM 7 points [-]

Some 11 year olds aren't interested in sex yet. Others are forks of an adult Tom Riddle who similarly isn't interested in sex.

Comment author: Transfuturist 24 February 2015 12:52:27AM 2 points [-]

Harry's a late bloomer, and he doesn't have any sexual figures around him to induce fantasy.

Comment author: DanielLC 24 February 2015 03:42:45AM 1 point [-]

He did read all of the books he's not supposed to.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 24 February 2015 06:47:31AM *  -2 points [-]

I'm not as smart as fictional Harry, but I knew at a younger age that books about sex (e.g. sex-ed texts intended for an adolescent audience, when I was several years from it) were books that some adults would prefer I not get into.