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Interesting article, I would recommend also reading Russ Robert's 'Wild Problems', who makes the case that algorithms are a bad fit for many of life's big decis
by shaftoe444 4y ago
Interesting article, I would recommend also reading Russ Robert's 'Wild Problems', who makes the case that algorithms are a bad fit for many of life's big decisions.
Podcast and transcript on it here. https://www.econtalk.org/russ-roberts-and-mike-munger-on-wild-problems/ https://www.econtalk.org/russ-roberts-and-mike-munger-on-wil...
- dinosaurdynasty 4y agoIsn't that just using the subconscious's algorithms instead of the conscious's?
- shaftoe444 4y agoGood way of putting it, when does an algorithm become a heuristic? For me the key thing is that when something is too complicated to quantify, attempting to quantify it will result in worse decisions. A bit like Hayek's calculation problem for the economy but for personal decisions.
- ssivark 4y agoCalling everything an algorithm rests on some implicit/vague assumption of computational universality (that subsumes human functioning!) which seems quite non-obvious. It's a useless (tautological) statement unless we start with a good definition of what is and is not an "algorithm". From a cursory glance, this seems trickier than it looks, and once we have a constrained definition it's not clear any more that human minds operate in the same framework (strong claims require strong evidence). Eg: If we define algorithms as what can be implemented on a Turing machine, then we're necessarily talking deterministic algorithms (allowing pseudorandomness), etc.
- dinosaurdynasty 4y agoTuring machines don't have to be deterministic (though it doesn't let you in principle calculate things you otherwise couldn't): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondeterministic_Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondeterministic_Turing_machin..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_Turing_machine