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> As someone who is therefore historically familiar with this process in a wider systemic sense What does "being historically familiar with a process in a wide

by vasco 1y ago

> As someone who is therefore historically familiar with this process in a wider systemic sense What does "being historically familiar with a process in a wider systemic sense" mean? I'm trying to parse this sentence without success.

kelseyfrog 1y ago
I'm reading it to say, having working knowledge of intra-personal structures in a way that is contingent on historical context. These would be social, economic, religious, family, political, patterns of relation that groups of people exist in. The assumption GP is making is that the incentives, values, and biases impressed upon folks providing RL training data may systematically favor responses along a certain vector that is the sum of these influences in a way that doesn't cancel out because the sample isn't representative. The economic dimension for example is particularly difficult to unbias because the sample creates the dataset as an integral part of their job. The converse would be collecting RL training data from people outside of the context of work. While that it may not be feasible or even possible to counter, that difficulty or impossibility doesn't resolve the issue of bias.
m3047 1y ago
Thank you everyone for the love. I read Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K Dick many years ago. I've been observing a recurring feature in human thought / organization ever since. People in this thread have done a pretty good job with the functional psychosis part, but I encourage considering percept / concept as well: what this is is the notion that what we see influences our mental model, but it works the other way as well and our mental model influences what we're capable of seeing. Yes, sort of like confirmation bias, but much more disturbing. For example, in the CIA's online library there is a coursebook titled _Psychology of Intelligence Analysis_ (1999) and one of the topics discussed is: "Initial exposure to blurred or ambiguous stimuli interferes with accurate perception even after more and better information be- comes available." Particularly fascinating to me is that people who are first shown a picture which is too blurry to make out take longer to correctly identify it as it is made clearer. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/books-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis-2/ https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/books-monographs/psycholog... My father was a psychiatrist. I'm interested in various facets of how people come to regard each other and their surroundings. I'm fascinated with the role language plays in this. I personally believe that computer programming languages and tech stacks provide a uniquely objective framework for evaluating the emergence of "personality" in cultures. "Diagnosticity is the informational value of an interaction, event, or feedback for someone seeking self-knowledge." https://dictionary.apa.org/diagnosticity https://dictionary.apa.org/diagnosticity Environments which lack information (diagnosticity) encourage the development of neuroses: sadism, masochism, ritual, fetishism, romanticism, hysteria, superstition, etc., etc. I have observed that left to stew in their own juices the spontaneous cultures which emerge around different languages / stacks tend to gravitate towards language-specific constellations of such neuroses; I'm not the only person who has observed this. I tend towards the "radar chart" methodology described in Leary's _Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality_ (1957); but here's a great talk someone gave at SXSW one year which explores a Lacanian model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZyvIHYn2zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZyvIHYn2zk
- theGnuMe 1y ago
  People are extremely uncomfortable with uncertainty, especially about themselves. So they create explanations... Programmers also don't like uncertainty so they create programming languages. There's also a bit of "not invented here" syndrome. Languages like Haskell are really applied type theory etc... In some sense, the academics invent languages for different levels of abstraction to ultimately write papers about how useful they are. In terms of programming languages, personality wise, in the end it's all javascript. Then there is Java and the Jvm which is on a mission to co-opt multiple personalities.
- nobodyandproud 1y ago
  “our mental model influences what we're capable of seeing.” This is too common. I’d like to think the Socratic method and mindset helps one break out of this rut.
  - m3047 1y ago
    Check out the CIA's free coursebook referenced above. It's got good stuff in it. (Your tax dollars at work.)

by vasco 1y ago

kelseyfrog 1y ago

I'm reading it to say, having working knowledge of intra-personal structures in a way that is contingent on historical context. These would be social, economic, religious, family, political, patterns of relation that groups of people exist in. The assumption GP is making is that the incentives, values, and biases impressed upon folks providing RL training data may systematically favor responses along a certain vector that is the sum of these influences in a way that doesn't cancel out because the sample isn't representative. The economic dimension for example is particularly difficult to unbias because the sample creates the dataset as an integral part of their job. The converse would be collecting RL training data from people outside of the context of work. While that it may not be feasible or even possible to counter, that difficulty or impossibility doesn't resolve the issue of bias.

m3047 1y ago

Thank you everyone for the love. I read Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K Dick many years ago. I've been observing a recurring feature in human thought / organization ever since. People in this thread have done a pretty good job with the functional psychosis part, but I encourage considering percept / concept as well: what this is is the notion that what we see influences our mental model, but it works the other way as well and our mental model influences what we're capable of seeing. Yes, sort of like confirmation bias, but much more disturbing. For example, in the CIA's online library there is a coursebook titled _Psychology of Intelligence Analysis_ (1999) and one of the topics discussed is: "Initial exposure to blurred or ambiguous stimuli interferes with accurate perception even after more and better information be- comes available." Particularly fascinating to me is that people who are first shown a picture which is too blurry to make out take longer to correctly identify it as it is made clearer. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/books-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis-2/ https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/books-monographs/psycholog... My father was a psychiatrist. I'm interested in various facets of how people come to regard each other and their surroundings. I'm fascinated with the role language plays in this. I personally believe that computer programming languages and tech stacks provide a uniquely objective framework for evaluating the emergence of "personality" in cultures. "Diagnosticity is the informational value of an interaction, event, or feedback for someone seeking self-knowledge." https://dictionary.apa.org/diagnosticity https://dictionary.apa.org/diagnosticity Environments which lack information (diagnosticity) encourage the development of neuroses: sadism, masochism, ritual, fetishism, romanticism, hysteria, superstition, etc., etc. I have observed that left to stew in their own juices the spontaneous cultures which emerge around different languages / stacks tend to gravitate towards language-specific constellations of such neuroses; I'm not the only person who has observed this. I tend towards the "radar chart" methodology described in Leary's _Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality_ (1957); but here's a great talk someone gave at SXSW one year which explores a Lacanian model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZyvIHYn2zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZyvIHYn2zk

theGnuMe 1y ago
People are extremely uncomfortable with uncertainty, especially about themselves. So they create explanations... Programmers also don't like uncertainty so they create programming languages. There's also a bit of "not invented here" syndrome. Languages like Haskell are really applied type theory etc... In some sense, the academics invent languages for different levels of abstraction to ultimately write papers about how useful they are. In terms of programming languages, personality wise, in the end it's all javascript. Then there is Java and the Jvm which is on a mission to co-opt multiple personalities.
nobodyandproud 1y ago
“our mental model influences what we're capable of seeing.” This is too common. I’d like to think the Socratic method and mindset helps one break out of this rut.
- m3047 1y ago
  Check out the CIA's free coursebook referenced above. It's got good stuff in it. (Your tax dollars at work.)