Language drift can introduce confusions but it also has advantages. The original definition of a concept is unlikely to be the most useful definition. It is good if words shift to the definitions that the community finds useful. Let me give an example.
Bostrom’s original defintion of ‘infohazard’ includes information that is dangerous in the wrong hands: “a risk that arises from the dissemination or the potential dissemination of (true) information that may cause harm or enable some agent to cause harm.” However most people use infohazard to mean something like “information that is intrinsically harmful to those who have it or will cause them to do harm to others” (this is how it used in the SCP stories for example). As Taymon points out Bostrom didn’t distinguish between “things you don’t want to know” and “things you don’t want other people to know”.
I think the SCP definition is more useful. It’s probably actively good that the definition of infohazard has shifted over time. Insisting on Bostrom’s definition is usually just confusing things.
Language drift can introduce confusions but it also has advantages. The original definition of a concept is unlikely to be the most useful definition. It is good if words shift to the definitions that the community finds useful. Let me give an example.
Bostrom’s original defintion of ‘infohazard’ includes information that is dangerous in the wrong hands: “a risk that arises from the dissemination or the potential dissemination of (true) information that may cause harm or enable some agent to cause harm.” However most people use infohazard to mean something like “information that is intrinsically harmful to those who have it or will cause them to do harm to others” (this is how it used in the SCP stories for example). As Taymon points out Bostrom didn’t distinguish between “things you don’t want to know” and “things you don’t want other people to know”.
I think the SCP definition is more useful. It’s probably actively good that the definition of infohazard has shifted over time. Insisting on Bostrom’s definition is usually just confusing things.