I can have a back-and-forth conversation with Nick Bostrom, who looks much more favorably on Oracle AI in general than I do, because we’re not playing reference class tennis with “But surely that will be just like all the previous X-in-my-favorite-reference-class”, nor saying, “But surely this is the inevitable trend of technology”; instead we lay out particular, “Suppose we do this?” and try to discuss how it will work, not with any added language about how surely anyone will do it that way, or how it’s got to be like Z because all previous Y were like Z, etcetera.
That’s one way to “win” a game of reference class tennis. Declare unilaterally that what you are discussing falls into the reference class “things that are most effectively reasoned about by discussing low level details and abandoning or ignoring all observed evidence about how things with various kinds of similarity have worked in the past”. Sure, it may lead to terrible predictions sometimes but by golly, it means you can score an ‘ace’ in the reference class tennis while pretending you are not even playing!
And atheism is a religion, and bald is a hair color.
The three distinguishing characteristics of “reference class tennis” are (1) that there are many possible reference classes you could pick and everyone engaging in the tennis game has their own favorite which is different from everyone else’s; (2) that the actual thing is obviously more dissimilar to all the cited previous elements of the so-called reference class than all those elements are similar to each other (if they even form a natural category at all rather than having being picked out retrospectively based on similarity of outcome to the preferred conclusion); and (3) that the citer of the reference class says it with a cognitive-traffic-signal quality which attempts to shut down any attempt to counterargue the analogy because “it always happens like that” or because we have so many alleged “examples” of the “same outcome” occurring (for Hansonian rationalists this is accompanied by a claim that what you are doing is the “outside view” (see point 2 and 1 for why it’s not) and that it would be bad rationality to think about the “individual details”).
I have also termed this Argument by Greek Analogy after Socrates’s attempt to argue that, since the Sun appears the next day after setting, souls must be immortal.
I have also termed this Argument by Greek Analogy after Socrates’s attempt to argue that, since the Sun appears the next day after setting, souls must be immortal.
For the curious, this is from the Phaedo pages 70-72. The run of the argument are basically thus:
P1 Natural changes are changes from and to opposites, like hot from relatively cold, etc.
P2 Since every change is between opposites A and B, there are two logically possible processes of change, namely A to B and B to A.
P3 If only one of the two processes were physically possible, then we should expect to see only one of the two opposites in nature, since the other will have passed away irretrievably.
P4 Life and death are opposites.
P5 We have experience of the process of death.
P6 We have experience of things which are alive
C From P3, 4, 5, and 6 there is a physically possible, and actual, process of going from death to life.
The argument doesn’t itself prove (haha) the immortality of the soul, only that living things come from dead things. The argument is made in support of the claim, made prior to this argument, that if living people come from dead people, then dead people must exist somewhere. The argument is particularly interesting for premises 1 and 2, which are hard to deny, and 3, which seems fallacious but for non-obvious reasons.
This sounds like it might be a bit of a reverent-Western-scholar steelman such as might be taught in modern philosophy classes; Plato’s original argument for the immortality of the soul sounded more like this, which is why I use it as an early exemplar of reference class tennis:
-
Then let us consider the whole question, not in relation to man only, but in relation to animals generally, and to plants, and to everything of which there is generation, and the proof will be easier. Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites? I mean such things as good and evil, just and unjust—and there are innumerable other opposites which are generated out of opposites. And I want to show that in all opposites there is of necessity a similar alternation; I mean to say, for example, that anything which becomes greater must become greater after being less.
True.
And that which becomes less must have been once greater and then have become less.
Yes.
And the weaker is generated from the stronger, and the swifter from the slower.
Very true.
And the worse is from the better, and the more just is from the more unjust.
Of course.
And is this true of all opposites? and are we convinced that all of them are generated out of opposites?
Yes.
And in this universal opposition of all things, are there not also two intermediate processes which are ever going on, from one to the other opposite, and back again; where there is a greater and a less there is also an intermediate process of increase and diminution, and that which grows is said to wax, and that which decays to wane?
Yes, he said.
And there are many other processes, such as division and composition, cooling and heating, which equally involve a passage into and out of one another. And this necessarily holds of all opposites, even though not always expressed in words—they are really generated out of one another, and there is a passing or process from one to the other of them?
Very true, he replied.
Well, and is there not an opposite of life, as sleep is the opposite of waking?
True, he said.
And what is it?
Death, he answered.
And these, if they are opposites, are generated the one from the other, and have there their two intermediate processes also?
Of course.
Now, said Socrates, I will analyze one of the two pairs of opposites which I have mentioned to you, and also its intermediate processes, and you shall analyze the other to me. One of them I term sleep, the other waking. The state of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out of sleeping waking is generated, and out of waking, sleeping; and the process of generation is in the one case falling asleep, and in the other waking up. Do you agree?
I entirely agree.
Then, suppose that you analyze life and death to me in the same manner. Is not death opposed to life?
Yes.
And they are generated one from the other?
Yes.
What is generated from the living?
The dead.
And what from the dead?
I can only say in answer—the living.
Then the living, whether things or persons, Cebes, are generated from the dead?
That is clear, he replied.
Then the inference is that our souls exist in the world below?
This sounds like it might be a bit of a reverent-Western-scholar steelman such as might be taught in modern philosophy classes
That was roughly my aim, but I don’t think I inserted any premises that weren’t there. Did you have a complaint about the accuracy of my paraphrase? The really implausible premise there, namely that death is the opposite of life, is preserved I think.
As for reverence, why not? He was, after all, the very first person in our historical record to suggest that thinking better might make you happier. He was also an intellectualist about morality, at least sometimes a hedonic utilitarian, and held no great respect for logic. And he was a skilled myth-maker. He sounds like a man after your own heart, actually.
Esar’s summary doesn’t seem to be different from this, other than 1) adding the useful bit about “passed away irretrievably” and 2) yours makes it clear that the logical jump happens right at the end.
I’m actually not sure now why you consider this like “reference class tennis”. The argument looks fine, except for the part where “souls exist in the world below” jumps in as a conclusion, not having been mentioned earlier in the argument.
The ‘souls exist in the world below’ bit is directly before what Eliezer quoted:
Suppose we consider the question whether the souls of men after death are or are not in the world below. There comes into my mind an ancient doctrine which affirms that they go from hence into the other world, and returning hither, are born again from the dead. Now if it be true that the living come from the dead, then our souls must exist in the other world, for if not, how could they have been born again? And this would be conclusive, if there were any real evidence that the living are only born from the dead; but if this is not so, then other arguments will have to be adduced.
Very true, replied Cebes.
Then let us consider the whole question...
But you’re right that nothing in the argument defends the idea of a world below, just that souls must exist in some way between bodies.
just that souls must exist in some way between bodies.
Not even that, at least in the part of the argument I’ve seen (paraphrased?) above.
He just mentions an ancient doctrine, and then claims that souls must exist somewhere while they’re not embodied, because he can’t imagine where they would come from otherwise. I’m not even sure if the ancient doctrine is meant as argument from authority or is just some sort of Chewbacca defense.
(He doesn’t seem to explicitly claim the “ancient doctrine” to be true or plausible, just that it came to his mind. It feels like I’ve lost something in the translation.)
(2) that the actual thing is obviously more dissimilar to all the cited previous elements of the so-called reference class than all those elements are similar to each other (if they even form a natural category at all rather than having being picked out retrospectively based on similarity of outcome to the preferred conclusion);
Ok, it seems like under this definition of “reference class tennis” (particularly parts (2) and (3)) the participants must be wrong and behaving irrationality about it in order to be playing reference class tennis. So when they are either right or at least applying “outside view” considerations correctly, given all the information available to them they aren’t actually playing “reference class tennis” but instead doing whatever it is that reasoning (boundedly) correctly using reference to actual relevant evidence about related occurrences is called when it isn’t packaged with irrational wrongness.
With this definition in mind it is necessary to translate replies such as those here by Holden:
We seem to have differing views of how to best do what you call “reference class tennis” and how useful it can be. I’ll probably be writing about my views more in the future.
Holden’s meaning is, of course, not that that he argues is actually a good thing but rather declaring that the label doesn’t apply to what he is doing. He is instead doing that other thing that is actually sound thinking and thinks people are correct to do so.
Come to think of it if most people in Holden’s shoes heard Eliezer accuse them of “reference class tennis” and actually knew that he intended it with the meaning he explicitly defines here rather than the one they infer from context they would probably just consider him arrogant, rude and mind killed then write him and his organisation off as not worth engaging with.
In the vast majority of cases where I have previously seen Eliezer argue against people using “outside view” I have agreed with Eliezer, and have grown rather fond of using the phrase “reference class tennis” as a reply myself where appropriate. But seeing how far Eliezer has taken the anti-outside-view position here and the extent to which “reference class tennis” is defined as purely an anti-outside-view semantic stop sign I’ll be far more hesitant to make us of it myself.
It is tempting to observe “Eliezer is almost always right when he argues against ‘outside view’ applications, and the other people are all confused. He is currently arguing against ‘outside view’ applications. Therefore, the other people are probably confused.” To that I reply either “Reference class tennis!” or “F*$% you, I’m right and you’re wrong!” (I’m honestly not sure which is the least offensive.)
Which of 1, 2 and 3 do you disagree with in this case?
Edit: I mean, I’m sorry to parody but I don’t really want to carefully rehash the entire thing, so, from my perspective, Holden just said, “But surely strong AI will fall into the reference class of technology used to give users advice, just like Google Maps doesn’t drive your car; this is where all technology tends to go, so I’m really skeptical about discussing any other possibility.” Only Holden has argued to SI that strong AI falls into this particular reference class so far as I can recall, with many other people having their own favored reference classes e.g. Hanson et. al as cited above; a strong AI is far more internally dissimilar from Google Maps and Yelp than Google Maps and Yelp are internally similar to each other, plus there are many many other software programs that don’t provide advice at all so arguably the whole class may be chosen-post-facto; and I’d have to look up Holden’s exact words and replies to e.g. Jaan Tallinn to decide to what degree, if any, he used the analogy to foreclose other possibilities conversationally without further debate, but I do think it happened a little, but less so and less explicitly than in my Robin Hanson debate. If you don’t think I should at this point diverge into explaining the concept of “reference class tennis”, how should the conversation proceed further?
Also, further opinions desired on whether I was being rude, whether logically rude or otherwise.
Viewed charitably, you were not being rude, although you did veer away from your main point in ways likely to be unproductive. (For example, being unnecessarily dismissive towards Hanson, who you’d previously stated had given arguments roughly as good as Holden’s; or spending so much of your final paragraph emphasizing Holden’s lack of knowledge regarding AI.)
On the most likely viewing, it looks like you thought Holden was probably playing reference class tennis. This would have been rude, because it would imply that you thought the following inaccurate things about him:
He was “taking his reference class and going home”
That you can’t “have a back-and-forth conversation” with him
I don’t think that you intended those implications. All the same, your final comment came across as noticeably less well-written than your post.
I’m confused how you thought “reference class tennis” was anything but a slur on the other side’s argument. Likewise “mindkilled.” Sometimes, slurs about arguments are justified (agnostic in the instant case) - but that’s a separate issue.
Empirically obviously 1 is true, I would argue strongly for 2 but it’s a legitimate point of dispute, and I would say that there were relatively small but still noticeable but quite forgiveable traces of 3.
Then it does seem like your AI arguments are playing reference class tennis with a reference class of “conscious beings”. For me, the force of the Tool AI argument is that there’s no reason to assume that AGI is going to behave like a sci-fi character. For example, if something like On Intelligence turns out to be true, I think the algorithms it describes will be quite generally intelligent but hardly capable of rampaging through the countryside. It would be much more like Holden’s Tool AI: you’d feed it data, it’d make predictions, you could choose to use the predictions.
(This is, naturally, the view of that school of AI implementers. Scott Brown: “People often
seem to conflate having intelligence with having volition. Intelligence without volition is just information.”)
That’s one way to “win” a game of reference class tennis. Declare unilaterally that what you are discussing falls into the reference class “things that are most effectively reasoned about by discussing low level details and abandoning or ignoring all observed evidence about how things with various kinds of similarity have worked in the past”. Sure, it may lead to terrible predictions sometimes but by golly, it means you can score an ‘ace’ in the reference class tennis while pretending you are not even playing!
And atheism is a religion, and bald is a hair color.
The three distinguishing characteristics of “reference class tennis” are (1) that there are many possible reference classes you could pick and everyone engaging in the tennis game has their own favorite which is different from everyone else’s; (2) that the actual thing is obviously more dissimilar to all the cited previous elements of the so-called reference class than all those elements are similar to each other (if they even form a natural category at all rather than having being picked out retrospectively based on similarity of outcome to the preferred conclusion); and (3) that the citer of the reference class says it with a cognitive-traffic-signal quality which attempts to shut down any attempt to counterargue the analogy because “it always happens like that” or because we have so many alleged “examples” of the “same outcome” occurring (for Hansonian rationalists this is accompanied by a claim that what you are doing is the “outside view” (see point 2 and 1 for why it’s not) and that it would be bad rationality to think about the “individual details”).
I have also termed this Argument by Greek Analogy after Socrates’s attempt to argue that, since the Sun appears the next day after setting, souls must be immortal.
For the curious, this is from the Phaedo pages 70-72. The run of the argument are basically thus:
P1 Natural changes are changes from and to opposites, like hot from relatively cold, etc.
P2 Since every change is between opposites A and B, there are two logically possible processes of change, namely A to B and B to A.
P3 If only one of the two processes were physically possible, then we should expect to see only one of the two opposites in nature, since the other will have passed away irretrievably.
P4 Life and death are opposites.
P5 We have experience of the process of death.
P6 We have experience of things which are alive
C From P3, 4, 5, and 6 there is a physically possible, and actual, process of going from death to life.
The argument doesn’t itself prove (haha) the immortality of the soul, only that living things come from dead things. The argument is made in support of the claim, made prior to this argument, that if living people come from dead people, then dead people must exist somewhere. The argument is particularly interesting for premises 1 and 2, which are hard to deny, and 3, which seems fallacious but for non-obvious reasons.
This sounds like it might be a bit of a reverent-Western-scholar steelman such as might be taught in modern philosophy classes; Plato’s original argument for the immortality of the soul sounded more like this, which is why I use it as an early exemplar of reference class tennis:
-
Then let us consider the whole question, not in relation to man only, but in relation to animals generally, and to plants, and to everything of which there is generation, and the proof will be easier. Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites? I mean such things as good and evil, just and unjust—and there are innumerable other opposites which are generated out of opposites. And I want to show that in all opposites there is of necessity a similar alternation; I mean to say, for example, that anything which becomes greater must become greater after being less.
True.
And that which becomes less must have been once greater and then have become less.
Yes.
And the weaker is generated from the stronger, and the swifter from the slower.
Very true.
And the worse is from the better, and the more just is from the more unjust.
Of course.
And is this true of all opposites? and are we convinced that all of them are generated out of opposites?
Yes.
And in this universal opposition of all things, are there not also two intermediate processes which are ever going on, from one to the other opposite, and back again; where there is a greater and a less there is also an intermediate process of increase and diminution, and that which grows is said to wax, and that which decays to wane?
Yes, he said.
And there are many other processes, such as division and composition, cooling and heating, which equally involve a passage into and out of one another. And this necessarily holds of all opposites, even though not always expressed in words—they are really generated out of one another, and there is a passing or process from one to the other of them?
Very true, he replied.
Well, and is there not an opposite of life, as sleep is the opposite of waking?
True, he said.
And what is it?
Death, he answered.
And these, if they are opposites, are generated the one from the other, and have there their two intermediate processes also?
Of course.
Now, said Socrates, I will analyze one of the two pairs of opposites which I have mentioned to you, and also its intermediate processes, and you shall analyze the other to me. One of them I term sleep, the other waking. The state of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out of sleeping waking is generated, and out of waking, sleeping; and the process of generation is in the one case falling asleep, and in the other waking up. Do you agree?
I entirely agree.
Then, suppose that you analyze life and death to me in the same manner. Is not death opposed to life?
Yes.
And they are generated one from the other?
Yes.
What is generated from the living?
The dead.
And what from the dead?
I can only say in answer—the living.
Then the living, whether things or persons, Cebes, are generated from the dead?
That is clear, he replied.
Then the inference is that our souls exist in the world below?
That is true.
(etc.)
That was roughly my aim, but I don’t think I inserted any premises that weren’t there. Did you have a complaint about the accuracy of my paraphrase? The really implausible premise there, namely that death is the opposite of life, is preserved I think.
As for reverence, why not? He was, after all, the very first person in our historical record to suggest that thinking better might make you happier. He was also an intellectualist about morality, at least sometimes a hedonic utilitarian, and held no great respect for logic. And he was a skilled myth-maker. He sounds like a man after your own heart, actually.
I think your summary didn’t leave anything out, or even apply anything particularly charitable.
Esar’s summary doesn’t seem to be different from this, other than 1) adding the useful bit about “passed away irretrievably” and 2) yours makes it clear that the logical jump happens right at the end.
I’m actually not sure now why you consider this like “reference class tennis”. The argument looks fine, except for the part where “souls exist in the world below” jumps in as a conclusion, not having been mentioned earlier in the argument.
The ‘souls exist in the world below’ bit is directly before what Eliezer quoted:
But you’re right that nothing in the argument defends the idea of a world below, just that souls must exist in some way between bodies.
The argument omits that living things can come from living things and dead thingsfrom dead things
Therefore, the fact that living things can come from dead things does not mean that have to in every case.
Although, if everything started off dead, they must have at some point.
So it’s an argument for abiogenesis,
Not even that, at least in the part of the argument I’ve seen (paraphrased?) above.
He just mentions an ancient doctrine, and then claims that souls must exist somewhere while they’re not embodied, because he can’t imagine where they would come from otherwise. I’m not even sure if the ancient doctrine is meant as argument from authority or is just some sort of Chewbacca defense.
(He doesn’t seem to explicitly claim the “ancient doctrine” to be true or plausible, just that it came to his mind. It feels like I’ve lost something in the translation.)
Ok, it seems like under this definition of “reference class tennis” (particularly parts (2) and (3)) the participants must be wrong and behaving irrationality about it in order to be playing reference class tennis. So when they are either right or at least applying “outside view” considerations correctly, given all the information available to them they aren’t actually playing “reference class tennis” but instead doing whatever it is that reasoning (boundedly) correctly using reference to actual relevant evidence about related occurrences is called when it isn’t packaged with irrational wrongness.
With this definition in mind it is necessary to translate replies such as those here by Holden:
Holden’s meaning is, of course, not that that he argues is actually a good thing but rather declaring that the label doesn’t apply to what he is doing. He is instead doing that other thing that is actually sound thinking and thinks people are correct to do so.
Come to think of it if most people in Holden’s shoes heard Eliezer accuse them of “reference class tennis” and actually knew that he intended it with the meaning he explicitly defines here rather than the one they infer from context they would probably just consider him arrogant, rude and mind killed then write him and his organisation off as not worth engaging with.
In the vast majority of cases where I have previously seen Eliezer argue against people using “outside view” I have agreed with Eliezer, and have grown rather fond of using the phrase “reference class tennis” as a reply myself where appropriate. But seeing how far Eliezer has taken the anti-outside-view position here and the extent to which “reference class tennis” is defined as purely an anti-outside-view semantic stop sign I’ll be far more hesitant to make us of it myself.
It is tempting to observe “Eliezer is almost always right when he argues against ‘outside view’ applications, and the other people are all confused. He is currently arguing against ‘outside view’ applications. Therefore, the other people are probably confused.” To that I reply either “Reference class tennis!” or “F*$% you, I’m right and you’re wrong!” (I’m honestly not sure which is the least offensive.)
Which of 1, 2 and 3 do you disagree with in this case?
Edit: I mean, I’m sorry to parody but I don’t really want to carefully rehash the entire thing, so, from my perspective, Holden just said, “But surely strong AI will fall into the reference class of technology used to give users advice, just like Google Maps doesn’t drive your car; this is where all technology tends to go, so I’m really skeptical about discussing any other possibility.” Only Holden has argued to SI that strong AI falls into this particular reference class so far as I can recall, with many other people having their own favored reference classes e.g. Hanson et. al as cited above; a strong AI is far more internally dissimilar from Google Maps and Yelp than Google Maps and Yelp are internally similar to each other, plus there are many many other software programs that don’t provide advice at all so arguably the whole class may be chosen-post-facto; and I’d have to look up Holden’s exact words and replies to e.g. Jaan Tallinn to decide to what degree, if any, he used the analogy to foreclose other possibilities conversationally without further debate, but I do think it happened a little, but less so and less explicitly than in my Robin Hanson debate. If you don’t think I should at this point diverge into explaining the concept of “reference class tennis”, how should the conversation proceed further?
Also, further opinions desired on whether I was being rude, whether logically rude or otherwise.
Viewed charitably, you were not being rude, although you did veer away from your main point in ways likely to be unproductive. (For example, being unnecessarily dismissive towards Hanson, who you’d previously stated had given arguments roughly as good as Holden’s; or spending so much of your final paragraph emphasizing Holden’s lack of knowledge regarding AI.)
On the most likely viewing, it looks like you thought Holden was probably playing reference class tennis. This would have been rude, because it would imply that you thought the following inaccurate things about him:
He was “taking his reference class and going home”
That you can’t “have a back-and-forth conversation” with him
I don’t think that you intended those implications. All the same, your final comment came across as noticeably less well-written than your post.
Thanks for the third-party opinion!
I’m confused how you thought “reference class tennis” was anything but a slur on the other side’s argument. Likewise “mindkilled.” Sometimes, slurs about arguments are justified (agnostic in the instant case) - but that’s a separate issue.
Do Karnofsky’s contributions have even one of these characteristics, let alone all of them?
Empirically obviously 1 is true, I would argue strongly for 2 but it’s a legitimate point of dispute, and I would say that there were relatively small but still noticeable but quite forgiveable traces of 3.
Then it does seem like your AI arguments are playing reference class tennis with a reference class of “conscious beings”. For me, the force of the Tool AI argument is that there’s no reason to assume that AGI is going to behave like a sci-fi character. For example, if something like On Intelligence turns out to be true, I think the algorithms it describes will be quite generally intelligent but hardly capable of rampaging through the countryside. It would be much more like Holden’s Tool AI: you’d feed it data, it’d make predictions, you could choose to use the predictions.
(This is, naturally, the view of that school of AI implementers. Scott Brown: “People often seem to conflate having intelligence with having volition. Intelligence without volition is just information.”)