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atucker comments on The Singularity Institute's Arrogance Problem - Less Wrong Discussion

63 Post author: lukeprog 18 January 2012 10:30PM

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Comment author: atucker 19 January 2012 10:53:59AM *  11 points [-]

You re-wrote the story of Harry Potter. How is this relevant to saving the world, again?

It's actually been incredibly useful to establishing the credibility of every x-risk argument that I've had with people my age.

"Have you read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality?"

"YES!"

"Ah, awesome!"

merriment ensues

topic changes to something about things that people are doing

"So anyway the guy who wrote that also does...."

Comment author: [deleted] 19 January 2012 12:23:54PM 19 points [-]

Again, take the outside outside view. The kind of conversation you described only happens with people who have read HPMoR--just telling people about the fic isn't really impressive. (Especially if we are talking about the 90+% of the population who know nothing about fanfiction.) Ditto for the Sequences, they're only impressive after the fact. Compare this to publishing a number of papers in a mainstream journal, which is a huge status boost even to people who have never actually read the papers.

Comment author: atucker 19 January 2012 12:38:24PM 1 point [-]

I don't think that that kind of status converts nearly as well as establishing a niche of people who start adopting your values, and then talking to them.

Comment author: [deleted] 19 January 2012 01:46:01PM *  14 points [-]

Perhaps not, but Luke was using HPMoR as an example of an accomplishment that would help negate accusations of arrogance, and for the majority of "regular" people, hearing that SIAI published journal articles does that better than hearing that they published Harry Potter fanfiction.

Comment author: pjeby 23 January 2012 06:37:32AM 4 points [-]

for the majority of "regular" people, hearing that SIAI published journal articles does that better than hearing that they published Harry Potter fanfiction

The majority of "regular" people don't know what journals are; apart from the Wall Street Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine, they mostly haven't heard of any. If asked about journal articles, many would say, "you mean like a blog?" (if younger) or think you were talking about a diary or a newspaper (if older).

They have, however, heard of Harry Potter. ;-)

Comment author: private_messaging 27 July 2012 04:02:23PM 0 points [-]

You know what would be awesome, it's if Eliezer wrote original Harry Potter to obtain funding for the SI.

Seriously, there is a plenty of people whom I would not pay to work on AI, who accomplished far more than anyone at SI, in the more relevant fields.