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If there's something that cannot be reliably summarized into a textbook, then can we expect to see an agent reliably output it as text in the first place?
by bitshiftfaced 3y ago
If there's something that cannot be reliably summarized into a textbook, then can we expect to see an agent reliably output it as text in the first place?
- WJW 3y agoDepends on the sophistication of the agent. I have agency myself and can express my current mental state quite readily, or can express personal opinions about a wide variety of subjects. I'm not sure how you would write a useful textbook about it though.
- bitshiftfaced 3y agoWe already summarize people's mental states and personal opinions in textbooks. No problem there.
- dist-epoch 3y agoIf it can't be reliably summarized, how can a human judge the output of the agent then? Compare it against what? It's a bit circular.
- bitshiftfaced 3y agoThe point is that if something is difficult to express or encode in to words for a textbook, then there's an underlying reason that would apply to not just textbooks but also to others who try to write about the same thing.
- AlotOfReading 3y agoYes. Translation of classical languages is a good example. There are lots of subtle nuances that aren't captured by any pedagogical text and we accept that humans require require apprenticeships/graduate study to become competent (self study is not enough), but the output is obviously text.
- bitshiftfaced 3y agoYou're describing a good example of a process that requires tacit knowledge. The process of translation results in an output of text, but we can easily represent this output in a textbook. What we can't easily represent in a textbook is the subtle nuances around the process of how to translate. I was referring to that kind of tacit knowledge itself (similar to OP's example of qualia).