Mathscinet doesn’t list any publications for Loosemore. However, if one extends outside the area of math into a slightly broader area then he does have some substantial publications. However if one looks at the list given above, the number which are on AI issues seems to be much smaller than 20. But, the basic point is sound: he is a subject matter expert.
I see a bunch of papers about consciousness. I clicked on a random other paper about dyslexia and neural nets and found no math in it. Where is his theorem?
Also, I once attended a non-AGI, mainstream AI conference which happened to be at Stanford and found that the people there unfortunately did not seem all that bright compared to those who e.g. work at hedge funds. I put much respect in mainstream machine learning, but the average practitioner of such who attends conferences is, apparently, a good deal below the level of the greats. If this is the level of ‘subject matter expert’ we are talking about, then indeed I feel very little hesitation indeed about labeling one perhaps non-representative example from such as an idiot—even if he really is a ‘math professor’ at some tiny college (whose publications contain no theorems?) then he can still happen to be a permanent idiot. It would not be all that odd. The level of social authority we are talking about is not great even on the scales of those impressed by such things.
I recently opened a book on how-to-write-fiction and was unpleasantly surprised on how useless it seemed; most books on how-to-write-fiction are surprisingly good (for some odd reason, writers are much better able to communicate their knowledge than many other people who try to write how-to books). Checking the author bibliography showed that the author was an English professor at some tiny college who’d never actually written any fiction. How dare I contradict them and call their book useless, when I’m not a professor at any college? Well… (Lesson learned: Libraries have good books on how-to-write, but a how-to-write book that shows up in the used bookstore may be unwanted for a reason.)
I see a bunch of papers about consciousness. I clicked on a random other paper about dyslexia and neural nets and found no math in it. Where is his theorem?
I didn’t assert he was a mathematician, and indeed that part of my point when I said he had no Mathscinet listed publications. But he does have publications about AI.
It seems very heavily that both you and Loosemore are letting your personal animosity cloud your judgement. I by and large think Loosemore is wrong about many of the AI issues under discussion here, but that discussion should occur, and having it derailed by emotional issues from a series of disagreements on a mailing list yeas ago is almost the exact opposite of rationality.
Mathscinet doesn’t list any publications for Loosemore. However, if one extends outside the area of math into a slightly broader area then he does have some substantial publications. However if one looks at the list given above, the number which are on AI issues seems to be much smaller than 20. But, the basic point is sound: he is a subject matter expert.
I see a bunch of papers about consciousness. I clicked on a random other paper about dyslexia and neural nets and found no math in it. Where is his theorem?
Also, I once attended a non-AGI, mainstream AI conference which happened to be at Stanford and found that the people there unfortunately did not seem all that bright compared to those who e.g. work at hedge funds. I put much respect in mainstream machine learning, but the average practitioner of such who attends conferences is, apparently, a good deal below the level of the greats. If this is the level of ‘subject matter expert’ we are talking about, then indeed I feel very little hesitation indeed about labeling one perhaps non-representative example from such as an idiot—even if he really is a ‘math professor’ at some tiny college (whose publications contain no theorems?) then he can still happen to be a permanent idiot. It would not be all that odd. The level of social authority we are talking about is not great even on the scales of those impressed by such things.
I recently opened a book on how-to-write-fiction and was unpleasantly surprised on how useless it seemed; most books on how-to-write-fiction are surprisingly good (for some odd reason, writers are much better able to communicate their knowledge than many other people who try to write how-to books). Checking the author bibliography showed that the author was an English professor at some tiny college who’d never actually written any fiction. How dare I contradict them and call their book useless, when I’m not a professor at any college? Well… (Lesson learned: Libraries have good books on how-to-write, but a how-to-write book that shows up in the used bookstore may be unwanted for a reason.)
I didn’t assert he was a mathematician, and indeed that part of my point when I said he had no Mathscinet listed publications. But he does have publications about AI.
It seems very heavily that both you and Loosemore are letting your personal animosity cloud your judgement. I by and large think Loosemore is wrong about many of the AI issues under discussion here, but that discussion should occur, and having it derailed by emotional issues from a series of disagreements on a mailing list yeas ago is almost the exact opposite of rationality.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/yq/wise_pretensions_v0/