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satt comments on Open thread, Aug. 10 - Aug. 16, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (283)
Important question that might affect the chances of humanity's survival:
Why is Bostrom's owl so ugly? I'm not much of a designer, but here's my humble attempt at a redesign :-)
Your owl looks cute and not scary. Framing AGI's as cute seems to go against the point.
Aha, that answers my question. I didn't realize that Bostrom's owl represented superintelligence, so I chose mine to be more like a reader stand-in.
If the owl is supposed to look scary and wrong, reminiscent of Langford's basilisk, then I agree that the original owl does the job okay. Though that didn't stop someone on Tumblr from being asked "why are you reading an adult coloring book?", which was the original impetus for me.
Is it possible to find an image that will look scary and wrong, but won't look badly drawn? Does anything here fit the bill?
There's the parable of sparrows who raise an owl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rRJ9Ep1Wzs That owl likely made it on the cover.
I don't think the owl has anything to do with the owls in the study hall ;)
OK, here's my next attempt with a well-drawn owl that looks scary instead of cute. What do you think?
I actually like Bostrom's owl. I've always thought that Superintelligence has a really good cover illustration.
I like it too, because it has character, which few pictures do. But the asymmetrical distorted face just bugs me. And the ketchup stains on the collar. And the composition problems (lack of space below the subtitle, timid placement of trees, etc.) For some reason my brain didn't see them as creative choices, but as mechanical problems that need fixing. Maybe I'm oversensitive.
That might be meant as a reminder of the inhumanity.
Stating the obvious: I don't think those stains are meant to be ketchup. (And maybe "owl with bloodstains" feels scarier than "owl with ketchup stains".)
They don't look like blood either.
Well, if we're going to be picky, neither does the owl look like an owl. It's not that sort of picture. But I suggest that "blood" is a more likely answer to "what do those red bits indicate?" than anything like "ketchup".
I strongly dislike this. The head seems too ornate and the outline reminds me of so-called "tribal" tattoos, which seems low status. The body being subtly asymmetrical is a slight annoyance as well and with the owl now being centered in the image I think the subtitle should be too.
This looks very good. The feet perched on thin air look a little off.
You should probably check with the presumed copyright holder, although I suspect that she plagiarized the head design.
That looks nice, but I wouldn't trust my aesthetic judgement too much.