ZacHirschman

Karma: 35

ZacHirschman 16 Jun 2015 8:48 UTC
0 points
in reply to: hairyfigment’s comment on: Philosophical differences
I think you have hit upon the crux of the matter in your last paragraph: the authors are in no way trying to find the best solution. I can’t speak for the authors you cite, but the questions asked by philosophers are different than, “what is the best answer?” They are more along the lines of, “How do we generate our answers anyways?” and “What might follow?” This may lead to an admittedly harmful lack of urgency in updating beliefs.

Because I enjoy making analogies: Science provides the map of the real world; philosophy is the cartography. An error on a map must be corrected immediately for accuracy’s sake; an error in efficient map design theory may take a generation or two to become immediately apparent.

Finally, you use Pearl as the champion of AI theory, but he is equally a champion of philosophy. As misguided as your citations may have been (as philosophers), Pearl’s work is equally well-guided in redeeming philosophers. I don’t think you have sufficiently addressed the cherrypicking charge: if your cited articles are strong evidence that philosophers don’t consider each other’s viewpoints, then every article in which philosophers do sufficiently consider each other’s viewpoints is weak evidence of the opposite.

ZacHirschman 15 Jun 2015 20:25 UTC
0 points
in reply to: hairyfigment’s comment on: Philosophical differences
It feels to me as though you are cherrypicking both evidence and topic. It may very well be that philosophers have a lot of work to do in the important AI field. This does not invalidate the process. Get rid of the term, talk about the process of refining human intelligence through means other than direct observation. The PROCESS, not the results (like the article you cite).

Speaking of that article from Noûs, it was published in 2010. Pearl did lots of work on counterfactuals and uncertainty dating back to 1980, but I would argue that, “The algorithmization of counterfactuals” contains the direct solution you reference. That paper was published in 2011. Unless, of course, you are referring to “Causes and Explanations—a sturctural model approach,” which was published in 2005 in the British Journal for the PHILOSOPHY of Science.

ZacHirschman 14 Jun 2015 9:35 UTC
2 points
on: Philosophical differences
It seems to me that pop philosophy is being compared to rigorous academic science. Philosophers make great effort to undertand each others’ frameworks. Controversy and disagreement abound, but exercising the mind in predicting consequences using mental models is fundamental to both scientific progress AND everyday life. You and I may disagree on our metaphysical views, but that doesn’t prevent us from exploring the consequences each viewpoint predicts. Eventually, we may be able to test these beliefs. Predicting these consequences in advance helps us use resources effectively (as opposed to testing EVERY possibility scientifically). (Human) philosophy is an important precursor to science.

I’m also glad to see in other comments that the AI case has greater uncertainty than the sleeper cell case.

Having made one counterpoint and mentioned another, let me add that this was a good read and a nice post.

ZacHirschman 26 May 2015 19:24 UTC
1 point
in reply to: TheAncientGeek’s comment on: Dissolving philosophy
Well said again, and well-considered that ideas in minds can only move forwards through time (not a physical law). My initial reaction to this article was, “What about philosophy of science?” However, it seems my PoSc objections extend to other realms of philosophy as well. Thank you for leading me here.

ZacHirschman 26 May 2015 19:00 UTC
0 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Dissolving philosophy
Popper (or Popperism) predicted that falsifiable models would yield more information than non-falsifiable ones.

I don’t think this is precisely testable, but it references precisely testable models. That is why I would categorize it as philosophy (of science), but not science.

ZacHirschman 26 May 2015 18:54 UTC
0 points
in reply to: TheAncientGeek’s comment on: Dissolving philosophy
Yes, I may have made an inferential leap here that was wrong or unnecessary. You and I agree very strongly on there being a distinction between Philosophy of Science and Experimental Philosophy. I wanted to draw a distinction between the kind of, “street philosophy” done by Socrates and the more rigorous, mathematical Philosophy of Science. “Experiment” may not have been the most appropriate verbiage.

I would be glad to reconsider my stance that this rationalist community privileges emotivist readings of ethics. I will begin looking into this. My reason for including this argument is the idea (from the article) that when philosophers ask questions about right and wrong or good and bad, they are really asking how people feel about these concepts.

ZacHirschman 26 May 2015 15:11 UTC
0 points
on: Dissolving philosophy
I like your interpretation of philosophy as it pertains to ethics, aesthetics, and perhaps metaphysics. Your Socrates example, and LW in general, privileges emotivist ethics, but this is an interesting point and not a drawback. Looking at ethics as a cognitive science is not necessarily a flawed approach, but it is important to consider the potential alternative models.

Philosophy has a branch called “philosophy of science” where your dissolution falls apart. Popperian falsifiability, Kuhnian paradigm shifts, and Bayesian reasoning all fall into this domain. There is a great compendium by Curd and Cover; I recommend searching the table of contents for essays also available online. Here, philosophers experiment with the precision of testable models rather than hypotheses.

ZacHirschman 26 May 2015 13:10 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: Open Thread, May 25 - May 31, 2015
I don’t mean to advocate an epiphany-driven model of discovery.

To use your Scientology example and terminology, what I am advocating is not that we find the “next big thing,” but that we pursue refinement of the original, “genuinely useful material.” Of course, it is much easier to advocate this than to put the work in, but that’s why I’m using the open thread.

There are some legitimate issues with some of the Sequences (both resolved and unresolved). The comments represent a very nice start, but there may be some serious philosophical work to be done. There is a well of knowledge about pursuing wells of knowledge, and I would find it purposeful to refine the effective pursuit of knowledge.

ZacHirschman 25 May 2015 20:18 UTC
2 points
in reply to: estimator’s comment on: Less Wrong lacks direction
What are your heuristics for telling whether posts/comments contain “high-quality opinions,” or “LW mainstream”? Also, what did you think of Loosemore’s recent post on fallacies in AI predictions?

ZacHirschman 25 May 2015 13:50 UTC
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, May 25 - May 31, 2015
I see that I used the word “growth” capriciously. I don’t necessarily mean greater numbers, I mean the opposite of stagnation. Of course a call for action is easier and less effective than acting, but that’s why we have open threads.

ZacHirschman 25 May 2015 7:07 UTC
8 points
on: Open Thread, May 25 - May 31, 2015
A few thoughts on Mark_Friedenbach’s recent departure:

I thought it could be unpacked into two main points. (1) is that Mark is leaving the community. To Mark, or anyone who makes this decision, I think the rational response is, “good luck and best wishes.” We are here for reasons, and when those reasons wane, I wouldn’t begrudge anyone looking elsewhere or doing other things.

(2) is that the community is in need of growth. My interpretation of this is as follows: the Sequences are not updated, and yet they are still referenced as source material. I wouldn’t mind reading if someone took a crack at a Sequences 2.0, or something completely different. Perhaps something with a more empirical/scientific focus (as opposed to foundational/philosophical), as Mark recommended.

ZacHirschman 19 May 2015 15:56 UTC
3 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Strategies and tools for getting through a break up
The impermanence of things is an excellent reason to get really enthusiastic about them.

ZacHirschman 19 May 2015 13:31 UTC
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: We Should Introduce Ourselves Differently
I think of it as “improvematism.” Maybe “improvementism” would sound more serious.

ZacHirschman 19 May 2015 13:22 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Elo’s comment on: The ganch gamble
“What if they kicked the mirror-maker out of town and awarded the actual worker?”

This is the question I keep asking myself. In the story as written, the village rewards the clever skilled worker over the diligent skilled worker. This might work in the short term, and the clever worker’s gamble pays off for him personally as he sees increased business from increased prestige. If we consider the village (or the judges) to be actors in the game, however, they act in their own disinterest by disincentivizing craftsmanship in favor of craftiness. And here I am, arguing for or against a parable...

ZacHirschman 19 May 2015 12:32 UTC
−1 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Which ideas from LW would you most like to see spread?
The difference being that on a football field or basketball court, there is a settled outcome of competition, and no sincere value attached to certain outcomes. An average person might prefer that their chosen sports team wins, but I think they would acknowledge that it does not make the world a better place. In politics, however, the preference that a chosen team wins is very closely tied to the view that the win is beneficial for everybody.

ZacHirschman 18 May 2015 20:23 UTC
−2 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Debunking Fallacies in the Theory of AI Motivation
″… thinking through the implications of an AI that is so completely unable to handle context, that it can live with Grade A contradictions at the heart of its reasoning, leads us to a mass of unbelievable inconsistencies in the ‘intelligence’ of this supposed superintelligence.”

This is all at once concise, understandable, and reassuring. Thank you. I still wonder if we are accurately broadening the scope of defined “intelligence” out too far, but my wonder comes from gaps in my specific knowledge and not from gaps in your argument.

ZacHirschman 18 May 2015 16:05 UTC
3 points
on: Which ideas from LW would you most like to see spread?
The idea that I find least entangled but still very potentially beneficial is that politics is the mind-killer. I realize it’s an old sequence, and it doesn’t have much traction here (since LW is ostensibly un-killed minds).

ZacHirschman 18 May 2015 15:57 UTC
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Debunking Fallacies in the Theory of AI Motivation
Feel free to disengage; TheAncientGeek helped me shift my paradigm correctly.

ZacHirschman 17 May 2015 15:10 UTC
0 points
in reply to: TheAncientGeek’s comment on: Debunking Fallacies in the Theory of AI Motivation
Thank you for responding and attempting to help me clear up my misunderstanding. I will need to do another deep reading, but a quick skim of the article from this point of view “clicks” a lot better for me.

ZacHirschman 16 May 2015 19:02 UTC
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Debunking Fallacies in the Theory of AI Motivation
You have my apologies if you thought I was attacking or pigeonholing your argument. While I lack the technical expertise to critique the technical portion of your argument, I think it could benefit from a more explicit avoidance of the fallacy mentioned above. I thought the article was very interesting and I will certainly come back to it if I ever get to the point where I can understand your distinctions between swarm intelligence and CFAI. I understand you have been facing attacks for your position in this article, but that is not my intention. Your meticulous arguments are certainly impressive, but you do them a disservice by dismissing well intentioned critique, especially as it applies to the structure of your argument and not the substance.

Einstein made predictions about what the universe would look like if there were a maximum speed. Your prediction seems to be that well built ai will not misunderstand its goals (please assume that I read your article thoroughly and that any misunderstandings are benign). What does the universe look like if this is false?

I probably fall under category a in your disjunction. Is it truly pointless to help me overcome my misunderstanding? From the large volume of comments, it seems likely that this misunderstanding is partially caused by a gap between what you are trying to say, and what was said. Please help me bridge this gap instead of denying its existence or calling such an exercise pointless.