It seems like the Outside View should only be considered in situations which have repeatably provided consistent results. This is an example of the procrastinating student. The event has been repeated numerous time with closely similar outcomes.
If the data is so insufficient that you have a hard time casting it to a reference class, that would imply that you don’t have enough examples to make a reference and that you should find some other line of argument.
This whole idea of outside view is analogous to instance based learning or case based reasoning. You are not trying to infer some underlying casual structure to give you insight in estimating. You are using an unknown distance and clustering heuristic to do a quick comparison. Just like in machine learning it will be fast, but it is only as accurate as your examples.
If you’re using something like Eigenfaces for face recognition, and you get a new face in, if it falls right in the middle of a large cluster of Jack’s faces, you can safely assume you are looking at Jack. If you get a face that is equally close to Susan, Laura, and Katherine, you wouldn’t want to just roll the dice with that guess.
The best thing to do would be to recognize that you need to fill in this area of this map a little more if you want to use it here. Otherwise switch to a better map.
I’m not sure what you are trying to argue here?
I am saying that trying to use a reference class prediction in a situation where you don’t have many examples of what you are referencing is a bad idea and will likely result in a flawed prediction.
You should only try and use the Outside View if you are in a situation that you have been in over and over and over again, with the same concrete results.
… then the data is most likely insufficient for reasoning in any other way
If you are using an Outside View to do reasoning and inference than I don’t know what to say other than, you’re doing it wrong.
If you are presented with a question about a post-singularity world, and the only admissible evidence (reference class) is
the class of instances of the human mind attempting to think and act outside of its epistemologically nurturing environment of clear feedback from everyday activities.
I’m sorry, but I am not going to trust any conclusion you draw. That is a really small class to draw from, small enough that we could probably name each instance individually.
I don’t care how smart the person is. If they are assigning probabilities from sparse data, it is just guessing. And if they are smart, they should know better than to call it anything else.
There have been no repeated trials of singularities with consistent unquestionable results. This is not like procrastinating students and shoppers, or estimations in software.
Without enough data, you are more likely to invent a reference class than anything else.
I think the Outside View is only useful when your predictions for a specific event have been repeatedly wrong, and the the actual outcome is consistent. The point of the technique is to correct for a bias. I would like to know that I actually have a bias before correcting it. And, I’d like to know which way to correct.
It seems like the Outside View should only be considered in situations which have repeatably provided consistent results. This is an example of the procrastinating student. The event has been repeated numerous time with closely similar outcomes.
If the data is so insufficient that you have a hard time casting it to a reference class, that would imply that you don’t have enough examples to make a reference and that you should find some other line of argument.
This whole idea of outside view is analogous to instance based learning or case based reasoning. You are not trying to infer some underlying casual structure to give you insight in estimating. You are using an unknown distance and clustering heuristic to do a quick comparison. Just like in machine learning it will be fast, but it is only as accurate as your examples.
If you’re using something like Eigenfaces for face recognition, and you get a new face in, if it falls right in the middle of a large cluster of Jack’s faces, you can safely assume you are looking at Jack. If you get a face that is equally close to Susan, Laura, and Katherine, you wouldn’t want to just roll the dice with that guess. The best thing to do would be to recognize that you need to fill in this area of this map a little more if you want to use it here. Otherwise switch to a better map.
Edit: spelling
… then the data is most likely insufficient for reasoning in any other way. Reference class of smart people’s predictions of the future performs extremely badly, even though they all had some real good inside view reasons for them.
I’m not sure what you are trying to argue here? I am saying that trying to use a reference class prediction in a situation where you don’t have many examples of what you are referencing is a bad idea and will likely result in a flawed prediction.
You should only try and use the Outside View if you are in a situation that you have been in over and over and over again, with the same concrete results.
If you are presented with a question about a post-singularity world, and the only admissible evidence (reference class) is
I’m sorry, but I am not going to trust any conclusion you draw. That is a really small class to draw from, small enough that we could probably name each instance individually. I don’t care how smart the person is. If they are assigning probabilities from sparse data, it is just guessing. And if they are smart, they should know better than to call it anything else.
There have been no repeated trials of singularities with consistent unquestionable results. This is not like procrastinating students and shoppers, or estimations in software. Without enough data, you are more likely to invent a reference class than anything else.
I think the Outside View is only useful when your predictions for a specific event have been repeatedly wrong, and the the actual outcome is consistent. The point of the technique is to correct for a bias. I would like to know that I actually have a bias before correcting it. And, I’d like to know which way to correct.
Edit: formatting
I don’t think they all had “good inside view reasons” if they were all, in fact, wrong!
Perhaps they thought they had good reasons, but you can’t conclude from this all future “good-sounding” arguments are incorrect.