intellectronica
Ask First
“Slightly Evil” AI Apps
Playbook for the Great Divergence
Thanks a lot for the helpful feedback!
I completely agree that the risk is trying to invent magical information about the future by inferring from what we know in the present. The reason I find this format helpful (and hoped the reader will too) is that to me it highlights the absurdity of trying to make a prediction based on the limited, currently available information, and as a result I’m more likely to take a rational approach—starting with the base rate (rather than biasing on current information that is unlikely to be all that relevant for the future), making very small corrections based on the information I have (instead of the very bold predictions the people often make) and make uncertainty explicit in the process.
I can see that it’s possible to go through this process making the same mistakes you’d do if you started from the beginning, but I find it harder. If you haven’t yet, give it a try (by using this end-to-beginning process) when you have a low-certainty / high-stakes decision to make, maybe you’ll find that it works for you too.
The Ultimate Step-by-Step Hiring Playbook
Consider the option that “negotiation” as a topic is a corporate fad. You hear a lot about it from the kind of people who try desperately to chase some kind of corporate game, but in practice, negotiation skills are not really that important in a work environment for the simple reason that these environments are by nature very cooperative. As long as you can get to clarity with people on what needs to be done, not much negotiation needs to happen. It’s quite easy to spot the graduates of negotiation classes at work—they are the ones who waste everyone’s time by practicing their negotiation jiu-jitsu moves when everyone else is just trying to agree on a project plan and get working. Maybe it’s a virtue to not be one of these people.
It’s hard to define what is inherently evil. Your definition (IIUC) includes all lying. I don’t think I can agree to that. Everyone lies all the time, and most of these acts or lying couldn’t be classified as evil.