Hanson being pro-singularity is such a high-probability prior, it contributes nothing to anyone’s estimate of the likelihood of a singularity. And, surely enough, his arguments are the same as usual: Moor’s law, planes vs. birds, leave out the details etc.
Personally, I like the smbc take on the Moor’s law (very mildly NSFW).
On a semi-related note, I envy you taking a course from Scott Aaronson :)
“Of course he would argue for X, therefore you shouldn’t listen to his arguments for X” is a fully general counterargument. The fact that he is making arguments for X shouldn’t cause much updating; the content of those arguments may very well. I realize that’s not precisely the point you are making.
If the arguments are already known to us, then they shouldn’t cause any updating if we are perfect logicians. However, it should be noted that this wasn’t a general post on the likelihood of the singularity, but a response to the other article (the bird metaphor was theirs, not Hanson’s). He was pointing out how already known arguments de-fang the arguments presented: if Hanson’s objections are correct, then if you were doing much updating because of the new arguments presented by Paul Allen, you should undo most of it.
Edited to add:
I should note that this is only applicable when the existing argument undermines the other argument, not when it simply overwhelms the new argument, or you get back to double-counting problems.
if Hanson’s objections are correct, then if you were doing much updating because of the new arguments presented by Paul Allen, you should undo most of it.
I upvoted the grandparent to −1 at first, for that reason. But I reversed this at 0 because I saw you imputed the bird argument to him and he didn’t use it (nor would it make sense for him to do so).
Also, I don’t know what Othello has to do with Moore’s Law.
No doubt a detailed enough emulation of bird body motions would in fact fly. It is true that a century ago our ability to create detailed bird body simulations was far less than our ability to infer abstract principles of flight. So we abstracted, and built planes, not bird emulations. But this hardly implies that brains must be understood abstractly before they can be emulated.
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I don’t know what Othello has to do with Moore’s Law.
Too bad he stopped being funny a few years back, while smbc is consistently great and covers the LW-relevant themes in a lot of detail, though I won’t risk linking it here.
YMMV. I think xkcd is consistently amusing, but smbc is a mix of good LW relevance and pointless penis humor. Go ahead and link any relevant smbcs you find in future. The one linked above doesn’t really have anything to do with the argument it’s mocking, which in turn isn’t being endorsed by anyone on here. That’s probably why you got downvoted, though I don’t know firsthand.
Hanson being pro-singularity is such a high-probability prior, it contributes nothing to anyone’s estimate of the likelihood of a singularity. And, surely enough, his arguments are the same as usual: Moor’s law, planes vs. birds, leave out the details etc.
Personally, I like the smbc take on the Moor’s law (very mildly NSFW).
On a semi-related note, I envy you taking a course from Scott Aaronson :)
“Of course he would argue for X, therefore you shouldn’t listen to his arguments for X” is a fully general counterargument. The fact that he is making arguments for X shouldn’t cause much updating; the content of those arguments may very well. I realize that’s not precisely the point you are making.
If the arguments are already known to us, then they shouldn’t cause any updating if we are perfect logicians. However, it should be noted that this wasn’t a general post on the likelihood of the singularity, but a response to the other article (the bird metaphor was theirs, not Hanson’s). He was pointing out how already known arguments de-fang the arguments presented: if Hanson’s objections are correct, then if you were doing much updating because of the new arguments presented by Paul Allen, you should undo most of it.
Edited to add:
I should note that this is only applicable when the existing argument undermines the other argument, not when it simply overwhelms the new argument, or you get back to double-counting problems.
Aha, that makes sense.
Hmm, I wonder if I pressed some hot button, given the silent disapproval.
I upvoted the grandparent to −1 at first, for that reason. But I reversed this at 0 because I saw you imputed the bird argument to him and he didn’t use it (nor would it make sense for him to do so).
Also, I don’t know what Othello has to do with Moore’s Law.
On planes and birds:
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what Othello?
Othello was a Moor. Moore proposed the law. Up a couple, you confused the two.
I think the lesson here is that in the set of [webcomics with unpronounceable four-letter names] LW leans more toward xkcd than smbc.
For one thing, if Munroe made that joke you know he’d have actually done the math.
Too bad he stopped being funny a few years back, while smbc is consistently great and covers the LW-relevant themes in a lot of detail, though I won’t risk linking it here.
YMMV. I think xkcd is consistently amusing, but smbc is a mix of good LW relevance and pointless penis humor. Go ahead and link any relevant smbcs you find in future. The one linked above doesn’t really have anything to do with the argument it’s mocking, which in turn isn’t being endorsed by anyone on here. That’s probably why you got downvoted, though I don’t know firsthand.