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Raiden comments on Personal examples of semantic stopsigns - Less Wrong Discussion

44 Post author: Alexei 06 December 2013 02:12AM

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Comment author: Raiden 11 December 2013 02:16:07PM 1 point [-]

Ones I've noticed are "lazy" or "stupid" or other words that are used to describe people. Sure, it can be good to have such models so that one can predict the behavior of a person, like "This person isn't likely to do his work." or "She might have trouble understanding that." The thing is, these are often treated as fundamental properties of an ontologically fundamental thing, which the human mind is not.

Why is this person lazy? Do they fall victim to hyperbolic discounting? Is there an ugh field related to their work? Do they not know what to do? Maybe they simply don't have good reason to work? Why is this person "stupid?" Do they lack the prerequisite knowledge to understand what you're saying? Are they interested in learning it? Do they have any experience with it?

Comment author: Lumifer 11 December 2013 04:45:16PM 0 points [-]

The thing is, these are often treated as fundamental properties

Being stupid is a fundamental property ("stupid" understood as having low g and not an inability to understand some particular issue).