But the original article implies that the Singularity movement does not need liberal arts participants at all; at least, not in their professional capacity:
That’s not how I read it. Eliezer was pointing out that they were signaling—calling out for participation from poets and artists because saying that brings out the warm fuzzies. Later he implies that artistic and poetic responses are welcome and appreciated (and I agree that the SAIA can benefit from artistic and poetic responses) but resents that poets and artists are specifically called on to do so, apparently because he sees that as reducing their humanity to mere titles.
but resents that poets and artists are specifically called on to do so, apparently because he sees that as reducing their humanity to mere titles.
I understood the rest of your comment, but I don’t understand this part. I, for example, am a software engineer. If SIAI wanted me to write some sort of an AI-management console for them, I would gladly do it. I don’t think this would “reduce my humanity to a mere title”. Acknowledging that my particular skills are well-suited to writing AI consoles, and poorly suited to, say, writing poems, does not somehow objectify me. No one can be good at everything, after all (at least, not in our pre-Singularity world).
So… are artists somehow fundamentally different from software engineers in this respect ?
I agree with you. I don’t think calling on poets and artists to be poetic and artistic is a problem, I was just interpreting what I thought Eliezer was saying.
Personally, I think Eliezer was actually offended by the idea that non-poets and non-artists cannot be poetic and artistic, i.e. we need poets and artists because these Computer Science/Math people can’t express themselves without equations.
But I’m making some big assumptions here, so I could have misread the whole thing.
FWIW, I do believe that non-poets and non-artists can express themselves without equations. That seems kind of like a no-brainer, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to communicate at all. Still, artists can probably express themselves better, on the average, than computer scientists and mathematicians. There’s nothing wrong with that; we’re good at one thing, they’re good at another, it’d be a boring old world if everyone was the same.
That’s just my personal opinion, though, I’m making no claim regarding whether Eliezer believes this or not.
That’s not how I read it. Eliezer was pointing out that they were signaling—calling out for participation from poets and artists because saying that brings out the warm fuzzies. Later he implies that artistic and poetic responses are welcome and appreciated (and I agree that the SAIA can benefit from artistic and poetic responses) but resents that poets and artists are specifically called on to do so, apparently because he sees that as reducing their humanity to mere titles.
I understood the rest of your comment, but I don’t understand this part. I, for example, am a software engineer. If SIAI wanted me to write some sort of an AI-management console for them, I would gladly do it. I don’t think this would “reduce my humanity to a mere title”. Acknowledging that my particular skills are well-suited to writing AI consoles, and poorly suited to, say, writing poems, does not somehow objectify me. No one can be good at everything, after all (at least, not in our pre-Singularity world).
So… are artists somehow fundamentally different from software engineers in this respect ?
I agree with you. I don’t think calling on poets and artists to be poetic and artistic is a problem, I was just interpreting what I thought Eliezer was saying.
Personally, I think Eliezer was actually offended by the idea that non-poets and non-artists cannot be poetic and artistic, i.e. we need poets and artists because these Computer Science/Math people can’t express themselves without equations.
But I’m making some big assumptions here, so I could have misread the whole thing.
FWIW, I do believe that non-poets and non-artists can express themselves without equations. That seems kind of like a no-brainer, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to communicate at all. Still, artists can probably express themselves better, on the average, than computer scientists and mathematicians. There’s nothing wrong with that; we’re good at one thing, they’re good at another, it’d be a boring old world if everyone was the same.
That’s just my personal opinion, though, I’m making no claim regarding whether Eliezer believes this or not.