The latter. The connection is tenuous; but let me explain.
If your model of the right way to make friendly AI is a completely top-down one, meaning the computer is your slave and you code it so that it is impossible for it to violate the Three Laws of Robotics, or a more sophisticated scheme that allows it to produce only certain kinds of plans, then the question is irrelevant.
But if your model of the right way to make friendly AI also involves developing a theory of rationality that leads to cooperation, then I would think that the person developing such a theory would also apply some of it in their own life, and be able to work well with others, and talk things out without descending into flame-wars or developing irrational biases against particular people.
Yet we seem to be bad at that on LW. I’m as guilty as anyone.
I think that both working well with others and having rationally decided that cooperation in PD-like problems is right are good things. I don’t think they necessarily come together! When I’m friendly to people, this tends to be for reasons that come out of my experience (e.g. “Maybe this person will be my friend, like So-and-so!”) or my emotions (e.g. “It’s a beautiful day! I just want to grin at everybody I meet and compliment them on their outfits!”) or my goals (e.g. “I want my friend to be happy, so I’ll bring her a glass of juice and ask her if there’s anything else I can do!”) rather than the fact that I think in PD situations you should be cooperative.
As for irrational biases against particular people, the easiest way to practically get around them is to hold a belief that people can and will change for the better. That way, if you have decided that someone is a stupid jerk, the next time you see a post of theirs you can check to see if they might have ceased to be a stupid jerk, instead of saying that because they are a stupid jerk the post must be stupid and jerky.
I think that both working well with others and having rationally decided that cooperation in PD-like problems is right are good things. I don’t think they necessarily come together!
As an example of how they should but do not come together, we have people here who agree that they should cooperate in extended PD, yet engage each other in an extended PD-like situation in which they have a discussion via comments and each continue to down-vote each others’ comments.
I can’t know, but I’ve seen cases where it seems likely. Sometimes I’ve seen extended exchanges between 2 people, that no one else seems to be reading, where all the comments have a score of −1.
Personally, I don’t think the voting system is working very well. It seems to be used to encourage conformity and punish negativity. I have a lot of points myself, but there’s a strong negative correlation between the quality of my comments and posts, and the votes they receive. I’d like it if votes were no longer anonymous. I don’t usually make a downvote without explaining why in a comment, myself.
My hypothesis: you’re a poor judge of whether people are reading an exchange. (where would you get that data?)
So how does your hypothesis explain that these hypothetical other readers consistently read one statement and disagree with it, and then read another statement disagreeing with the first statement, and disagree with that also?
My hypothesis: you’re a poor judge of the quality of your comments and posts.
My hypothesis: You didn’t bother checking any data before your knee-jerk response, even though it was a button-click away. Honestly, did you?
If I were merely a poor judge, my sample size is large enough that the correlation would most likely be low or random, not strongly negative.
But instead of a hypothesis, let’s give you some objective data. Would you agree that
higher-quality posts should generate more discussion?
Here are posts I have made, followed by their voted score, followed by
the number of comments.
Media bias, 30, 43 - Mechanics without wrenches, 23, 71 -
A note on hypotheticals, 18, 17 -
Tell it to someone who doesn’t care, 15, 34
The Machine Learning Personality Test, 15, 27
Aumann voting; or, How to vote when you’re ignorant, 10, 31
On dollars, utility, and crack cocaine, 8, 97
Exterminating life is rational, 7, 216
Marketing rationalism, 7, 54
Extreme updating: The devil is in the missing details, 6, 16
Would you agree that higher-quality posts should generate more discussion?
No. A good troll can get far more comments than almost any high-quality non-troll post. And you also cannot ignore the difficulty of the post, or how much knowledge it presupposes (and thus how small its potential audience is), or whether the post is on a topic that everybody is an expert in (e.g., politics, male-female relations, religion).
I for one comment far more on Phil’s posts when I think they’re completely misguided than I do otherwise. Not sure what that says about me, but if others did likewise, we would predict precisely the relationship Phil is observing.
So how does your hypothesis explain that these hypothetical other readers consistently read one statement and disagree with it, and then read another statement disagreeing with the first statement, and disagree with that also?
You’re assuming that these hypothetical other readers downvote for disagreement. It’s completely possible to read an internet argument and think the entire thing is just stupid/poor quality/not worth wasting time on.
Here are posts I have made, followed by their voted score, followed by the number of comments.
Is your assumption that quality of post is proportional to the amount of discussion under it? (Edit: I see that indeed it is.) That seems like a huge assumption, especially since many long exchanges spin off from nitpicks and tangents. Also, the post of yours that generated the most comments was also really long, and even then a fair chunk of the replies were the descendants of my gendered language nudge.
Exactly. I’d guess (based on the stated justifications for voting that have been uttered in many LW threads) that most people don’t vote based on disagreement but on what they want to see more of and what they want to see less of.
I think I’ve been in one of those exchanges, but I didn’t downvote anyone. (I guess someone thought the whole conversation was nonsensical or boring, or something.) Can you give specific examples so that the authors of the thread can confirm or deny your hypothesis?
I think votes tend to get more petty use than might be preferred, the negative effects of which could be partly ameliorated by displaying upvotes and downvotes separately, but even in the absence of that feature I think they do more good than harm.
The latter. The connection is tenuous; but let me explain.
If your model of the right way to make friendly AI is a completely top-down one, meaning the computer is your slave and you code it so that it is impossible for it to violate the Three Laws of Robotics, or a more sophisticated scheme that allows it to produce only certain kinds of plans, then the question is irrelevant.
But if your model of the right way to make friendly AI also involves developing a theory of rationality that leads to cooperation, then I would think that the person developing such a theory would also apply some of it in their own life, and be able to work well with others, and talk things out without descending into flame-wars or developing irrational biases against particular people.
Yet we seem to be bad at that on LW. I’m as guilty as anyone.
I think that both working well with others and having rationally decided that cooperation in PD-like problems is right are good things. I don’t think they necessarily come together! When I’m friendly to people, this tends to be for reasons that come out of my experience (e.g. “Maybe this person will be my friend, like So-and-so!”) or my emotions (e.g. “It’s a beautiful day! I just want to grin at everybody I meet and compliment them on their outfits!”) or my goals (e.g. “I want my friend to be happy, so I’ll bring her a glass of juice and ask her if there’s anything else I can do!”) rather than the fact that I think in PD situations you should be cooperative.
As for irrational biases against particular people, the easiest way to practically get around them is to hold a belief that people can and will change for the better. That way, if you have decided that someone is a stupid jerk, the next time you see a post of theirs you can check to see if they might have ceased to be a stupid jerk, instead of saying that because they are a stupid jerk the post must be stupid and jerky.
As an example of how they should but do not come together, we have people here who agree that they should cooperate in extended PD, yet engage each other in an extended PD-like situation in which they have a discussion via comments and each continue to down-vote each others’ comments.
Since votes are anonymous, how can you know that this is happening?
I can’t know, but I’ve seen cases where it seems likely. Sometimes I’ve seen extended exchanges between 2 people, that no one else seems to be reading, where all the comments have a score of −1.
Personally, I don’t think the voting system is working very well. It seems to be used to encourage conformity and punish negativity. I have a lot of points myself, but there’s a strong negative correlation between the quality of my comments and posts, and the votes they receive. I’d like it if votes were no longer anonymous. I don’t usually make a downvote without explaining why in a comment, myself.
My hypothesis: you’re a poor judge of whether people are reading an exchange. (where would you get that data?)
My hypothesis: you’re a poor judge of the quality of your comments and posts.
So how does your hypothesis explain that these hypothetical other readers consistently read one statement and disagree with it, and then read another statement disagreeing with the first statement, and disagree with that also?
My hypothesis: You didn’t bother checking any data before your knee-jerk response, even though it was a button-click away. Honestly, did you?
If I were merely a poor judge, my sample size is large enough that the correlation would most likely be low or random, not strongly negative.
But instead of a hypothesis, let’s give you some objective data. Would you agree that higher-quality posts should generate more discussion?
Here are posts I have made, followed by their voted score, followed by the number of comments.
Media bias, 30, 43 - Mechanics without wrenches, 23, 71 - A note on hypotheticals, 18, 17 - Tell it to someone who doesn’t care, 15, 34
The Machine Learning Personality Test, 15, 27
Aumann voting; or, How to vote when you’re ignorant, 10, 31
On dollars, utility, and crack cocaine, 8, 97
Exterminating life is rational, 7, 216
Marketing rationalism, 7, 54
Extreme updating: The devil is in the missing details, 6, 16
Calibration fail, 5, 36.
Chomsky on reason and science, 5, 6
Is masochism necessary?, 4, 123
You can’t believe in Bayes, 1, 53
Average utilitarianism must be correct?, 1, 111
Rationalists lose when others choose, 0, 52
Homogeneity vs. heterogeneity, 0, 77
Correlation coefficient = -.23
Linear regression slope = −1.4
No. A good troll can get far more comments than almost any high-quality non-troll post. And you also cannot ignore the difficulty of the post, or how much knowledge it presupposes (and thus how small its potential audience is), or whether the post is on a topic that everybody is an expert in (e.g., politics, male-female relations, religion).
I for one comment far more on Phil’s posts when I think they’re completely misguided than I do otherwise. Not sure what that says about me, but if others did likewise, we would predict precisely the relationship Phil is observing.
You’re assuming that these hypothetical other readers downvote for disagreement. It’s completely possible to read an internet argument and think the entire thing is just stupid/poor quality/not worth wasting time on.
Is your assumption that quality of post is proportional to the amount of discussion under it? (Edit: I see that indeed it is.) That seems like a huge assumption, especially since many long exchanges spin off from nitpicks and tangents. Also, the post of yours that generated the most comments was also really long, and even then a fair chunk of the replies were the descendants of my gendered language nudge.
Exactly. I’d guess (based on the stated justifications for voting that have been uttered in many LW threads) that most people don’t vote based on disagreement but on what they want to see more of and what they want to see less of.
I think I’ve been in one of those exchanges, but I didn’t downvote anyone. (I guess someone thought the whole conversation was nonsensical or boring, or something.) Can you give specific examples so that the authors of the thread can confirm or deny your hypothesis?
I think votes tend to get more petty use than might be preferred, the negative effects of which could be partly ameliorated by displaying upvotes and downvotes separately, but even in the absence of that feature I think they do more good than harm.