Though not meant as derision, it is absolutely wild to read “Though I don’t know that much about orcas” and “50% that orcas could do superhuman scientific problem solving” in the same paragraph.
My uneasiness with this post is that I am not sure how serious/joking the post is. It has some of the hallmark of a relatively lighthearted post written in a serious way. (The interaction with the IP, for example) And tones of conversation is light at parts. Yet the call to actions are confusing—it is not really motivating and seems to offload responsibility too eagerly for someone that actually believes what they are writing about.
I am very confused about the post and not sure what to think about it.
I did read the original. It was long and I skimmed it. It was better in the coherence-sense that the OOP didn’t post a probability on whether it is true or not. Hell, the OOP hedged it by saying “ Do I believe what I’m saying? Well, yes and no”.
I guess the core of my confusion is the radical mismatch in confidence projection in its explicit form and implicit form (through tone and context setting). [Note: the updated wording definitely tempers the expectations in the right direction, thou still a bit bonkers at first glance.]
50% is extremely high. And lighthearted tones are often used to convey a sense of “I know this is farfetched theory. But I hold this strong claim very/appropriately weakly”.
The post is not joking. (But thanks for feedback that you were confused in this way!)
I basically didn’t know much about orcas before I learned that they have 2.05 times 3 days ago as many neurons in the neocortex than humans, and then yesterday and the day before I spent looking into how smart orcas might be and evaluating the evidence. So I’m far from an expert but I also didn’t run over strong evidence that they are dumber than hunter-gatherer humans and some weak-medium strong evidence that they are might at least as smart as 15 year olds. But it’s still possible that orca researchers have observed orcas not finding some strategies they would’ve thought of or sth.
But yeah the only piece of evidence that they might be significantly smarter than humans is their brains. I consider it reasonably strong though.
ADDED:
I edited “Though I don’t know that much about orcas” to “Though I only tried to form a model of orca intelligence for 1-2 days”. thanks!
I appreciate you being relatively clear about this, but yeah, I think it’s probably better to spend more time learning facts and thinking stuff through, compared to writing breathless LW posts. More like a couple weeks rather than a couple days. But that’s just my stupid opinion. The thing is, there’s probably gonna be like ten other posts in the reference class of this post, and they just… don’t leave much of a dent in things? There’s a lot that needs serious thinking-through, let’s get to work on that! But IDK, maybe someone will be inspired by this post to think through orca stuff more thoroughly.
I don’t think I’m the right person to look into this.
I just updated quickly via conservation of expected probability. (I agree though that I’d be a bit concerned about most people updating that quickly. If you think I’ve gone slightly psychotic please bet with me so I update harder if I notice you’re right.)
(EDIT: actually it’s sorta shitty because we might not get more evidence because I have even more important things to do and probably don’t have time to look into it myself, but i’m happy to bet, though I’d probably want to revise my betting probability.)
I’m happy to bet on “By the end of 2034, does Tsvi think that it’s >60% likely that orcas could do superhuman science if they had similar quality and quantity of science education as scientists and were motivated for this, conditional on Tsvi having talked to me for at least 2 hours about this {sometime in 2030-2034}/{when I might have more evidence}?”
I’d currently be at like 30%26% on this, though if you take more time to think about it I might adjust this estimate I am willing to bet on.
I’m happy to bet up to 200$ per bit (or maybe more but would have to think about it). Aka if it’s resolved “Yes”, money flowing from you to me would be 200$⋅(log2(pme)−log2(pTsvi)) (and if it’s resolved “No” it would be 200$⋅(log2(1−pme)−log2(1−pTsvi)) ). (Where negative money flow indicates flow into the other direction.)
(Also obviously you’d need to commit to talking to me for 2h sometime when i have more evidence, and not just avoid resolution by not talking to me.)
I don’t know what you mean by this:
The thing is, there’s probably gonna be like ten other posts in the reference class of this post, and they just… don’t leave much of a dent in things?
Though not meant as derision, it is absolutely wild to read “Though I don’t know that much about orcas” and “50% that orcas could do superhuman scientific problem solving” in the same paragraph.
My uneasiness with this post is that I am not sure how serious/joking the post is. It has some of the hallmark of a relatively lighthearted post written in a serious way. (The interaction with the IP, for example) And tones of conversation is light at parts. Yet the call to actions are confusing—it is not really motivating and seems to offload responsibility too eagerly for someone that actually believes what they are writing about.
I am very confused about the post and not sure what to think about it.
No good science without some good fun.
I would recommend reading the original reddit post that motivated it: https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/16y81ct/the_case_for_whales_actually_matching_or_even/.
It is meant seriously, but the author is rightly acknowledging how far-fetched it sounds.
I did read the original. It was long and I skimmed it. It was better in the coherence-sense that the OOP didn’t post a probability on whether it is true or not. Hell, the OOP hedged it by saying “ Do I believe what I’m saying? Well, yes and no”.
I guess the core of my confusion is the radical mismatch in confidence projection in its explicit form and implicit form (through tone and context setting). [Note: the updated wording definitely tempers the expectations in the right direction, thou still a bit bonkers at first glance.]
50% is extremely high. And lighthearted tones are often used to convey a sense of “I know this is farfetched theory. But I hold this strong claim very/appropriately weakly”.
The post is not joking. (But thanks for feedback that you were confused in this way!)
I basically didn’t know much about orcas before I learned that they have 2.05 times 3 days ago as many neurons in the neocortex than humans, and then yesterday and the day before I spent looking into how smart orcas might be and evaluating the evidence. So I’m far from an expert but I also didn’t run over strong evidence that they are dumber than hunter-gatherer humans and some weak-medium strong evidence that they are might at least as smart as 15 year olds. But it’s still possible that orca researchers have observed orcas not finding some strategies they would’ve thought of or sth.
But yeah the only piece of evidence that they might be significantly smarter than humans is their brains. I consider it reasonably strong though.
ADDED:
I edited “Though I don’t know that much about orcas” to “Though I only tried to form a model of orca intelligence for 1-2 days”. thanks!
I appreciate you being relatively clear about this, but yeah, I think it’s probably better to spend more time learning facts and thinking stuff through, compared to writing breathless LW posts. More like a couple weeks rather than a couple days. But that’s just my stupid opinion. The thing is, there’s probably gonna be like ten other posts in the reference class of this post, and they just… don’t leave much of a dent in things? There’s a lot that needs serious thinking-through, let’s get to work on that! But IDK, maybe someone will be inspired by this post to think through orca stuff more thoroughly.
I don’t think I’m the right person to look into this.
I just updated quickly via conservation of expected probability. (I agree though that I’d be a bit concerned about most people updating that quickly. If you think I’ve gone slightly psychotic please bet with me so I update harder if I notice you’re right.)
(EDIT: actually it’s sorta shitty because we might not get more evidence because I have even more important things to do and probably don’t have time to look into it myself, but i’m happy to bet, though I’d probably want to revise my betting probability.)
I’m happy to bet on “By the end of 2034, does Tsvi think that it’s >60% likely that orcas could do superhuman science if they had similar quality and quantity of science education as scientists and were motivated for this, conditional on Tsvi having talked to me for at least 2 hours about this {sometime in 2030-2034}/{when I might have more evidence}?”
I’d currently be at like
30%26% on this, though if you take more time to think about it I might adjust this estimate I am willing to bet on.I’m happy to bet up to 200$ per bit (or maybe more but would have to think about it). Aka if it’s resolved “Yes”, money flowing from you to me would be 200$⋅(log2(pme)−log2(pTsvi)) (and if it’s resolved “No” it would be 200$⋅(log2(1−pme)−log2(1−pTsvi)) ). (Where negative money flow indicates flow into the other direction.)
(Also obviously you’d need to commit to talking to me for 2h sometime when i have more evidence, and not just avoid resolution by not talking to me.)
I don’t know what you mean by this:
I don’t care about doing this bet. We can just have a conversation though, feel free to DM me.