It’s not just the title but also (what I took to be) the thesis statement “Comparisons are often useful, but in this case, I think the disanalogies are much more compelling than the analogies”, and also “While I think the disanalogies are compelling…” and such.
For comparison:
Question:Are the analogies between me (Steve) and you (David) more compelling, or less compelling, than the disanalogies between me and you?
I think the correct answer to that question is “Huh? What are are you talking about?” For example:
If this is a conversation about gross anatomy or cardiovascular physiology across the animal kingdom, then you and I are generally extremely similar.
If this is a conversation about movie preferences or exercise routines, then I bet you and I are pretty different.
So at the end of the day, that question above is just meaningless, right? We shouldn’t be answering it at all.
I don’t think disanalogies between A and B can be “compelling” or “uncompelling”, any more than mathematical operations can be moist or dry. I think a disanalogy between A and B may invalidate a certain point that someone is trying to make by analogizing A to B, or it may not invalidate it, but that depends on what the point is.
FWIW I do think “Biorisk is Often an Unhelpful Analogy for AI Risk,” or “Biorisk is Misleading as a General Analogy for AI Risk” are both improvements :)
I agree that your question is weird and confused, and agree that if that were the context, my post would be hard to understand. But I think it’s a bad analogy! That’s because there are people who have made analogies between AI and Bio very poorly, and it’s misleading and leading to sloppy thinking. In my experience seeing discussions on the topic, either the comparisons are drawn carefully and the relevant dissimilarities are discussed clearly, or they are bad analogies.
To stretch your analogy, if the context were that I’d recently heard people say “Steve and David are both people I know, and if you don’t like Steve, you probably won’t like David,” and also “Steve and David are both concerned about AI risks, so they agree on how to discuss the issue,” I’d wonder if there was some confusion, and I’d feel comfortable saying that in general, Steve is an unhelpful analog for David, and all these people should stop and be much more careful in how they think about comparisons between us.
It’s not just the title but also (what I took to be) the thesis statement “Comparisons are often useful, but in this case, I think the disanalogies are much more compelling than the analogies”, and also “While I think the disanalogies are compelling…” and such.
For comparison:
Question: Are the analogies between me (Steve) and you (David) more compelling, or less compelling, than the disanalogies between me and you?
I think the correct answer to that question is “Huh? What are are you talking about?” For example:
If this is a conversation about gross anatomy or cardiovascular physiology across the animal kingdom, then you and I are generally extremely similar.
If this is a conversation about movie preferences or exercise routines, then I bet you and I are pretty different.
So at the end of the day, that question above is just meaningless, right? We shouldn’t be answering it at all.
I don’t think disanalogies between A and B can be “compelling” or “uncompelling”, any more than mathematical operations can be moist or dry. I think a disanalogy between A and B may invalidate a certain point that someone is trying to make by analogizing A to B, or it may not invalidate it, but that depends on what the point is.
FWIW I do think “Biorisk is Often an Unhelpful Analogy for AI Risk,” or “Biorisk is Misleading as a General Analogy for AI Risk” are both improvements :)
I agree that your question is weird and confused, and agree that if that were the context, my post would be hard to understand. But I think it’s a bad analogy! That’s because there are people who have made analogies between AI and Bio very poorly, and it’s misleading and leading to sloppy thinking. In my experience seeing discussions on the topic, either the comparisons are drawn carefully and the relevant dissimilarities are discussed clearly, or they are bad analogies.
To stretch your analogy, if the context were that I’d recently heard people say “Steve and David are both people I know, and if you don’t like Steve, you probably won’t like David,” and also “Steve and David are both concerned about AI risks, so they agree on how to discuss the issue,” I’d wonder if there was some confusion, and I’d feel comfortable saying that in general, Steve is an unhelpful analog for David, and all these people should stop and be much more careful in how they think about comparisons between us.