3 ms·

Humans are not Automatically Strategic (2010)

57 points by jeremynixon 11y ago

paulsutter 11y ago
> Why? Most basically, because humans are only just on the cusp of general intelligence. I agree. General intelligence, to me, is defined as the ability to create a greater intelligence. An ability that's hypothesized for humans, but yet unproven. Therefore, on the cusp of general intelligence.
- dvanduzer 11y ago
  General intelligence does seem to be non-orthogonal to strategic thinking. (The nuance is what Yudkowsky et al. tend to write about.) second edit: "Can we actually change that en masse?" is the most interesting question.
  - gull 11y ago
    Is there any way this be done systematically with software?
    - dvanduzer 11y ago
      Are you talking about software that provides relevant information for any human making a general decision? Or are you describing another kind of software?
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  General intelligence, to me, is defined as the ability to create a greater intelligence. Define "greater". And since your definition is recursive, define your base case. I'll suggest that "intelligence" is about how much information you can extract from a given set of data. And since information theory says any given set of data only has a limited amount of information in it, this would imply that "intelligence" is not potentially unbounded but is on a scale of 0%-100%.
- emiliobumachar 11y ago
  Would having and raising children more intelligent than oneself count?
maaaats 11y ago
If you like blog posts like these, check out the book Rationality: From AI to zombies. Basically a compilation of these posts.
- roryokane 11y ago
  Link: https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/ https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/. The ebook collection has a suggested price of $5.00, and a minimum price of $0.00.
mangeletti 11y ago
Wow, this is really interesting... I'm going to return later to read all the comments herein and in the article.
YokoZar 11y ago
While the author has a great underlying point, I find this style of writing a particular disservice: "Perhaps 5% of the population has enough abstract reasoning skill to verbally understand that the above heuristics would be useful once these heuristics are pointed out." This is a version of "you, enlightened reader, are the special chosen few" - to me it reads no different in rationalist essays as when it gets pitched to me by multi-level marketers selling their get rich quick schemes. If you're familiar with reading bullshit such an appeal to the reader's vanity should immediately send up a few red flags, and it can completely detract from what would otherwise be a reasonable piece.
- jere 11y ago
  The site has always given me that vibe. I'm not sure I understand the point of a bunch of people getting together to celebrate how smart they are. Especially since they're pulling statistics out of thin air and using unconvincing examples: you're telling me most comedians don't keep track of which jokes are getting laughs?! My final impression: https://xkcd.com/874/ https://xkcd.com/874/

57 points by jeremynixon 11y ago

> Why? Most basically, because humans are only just on the cusp of general intelligence. I agree. General intelligence, to me, is defined as the ability to create a greater intelligence. An ability that's hypothesized for humans, but yet unproven. Therefore, on the cusp of general intelligence.

dvanduzer 11y ago
General intelligence does seem to be non-orthogonal to strategic thinking. (The nuance is what Yudkowsky et al. tend to write about.) second edit: "Can we actually change that en masse?" is the most interesting question.
- gull 11y ago
  Is there any way this be done systematically with software?
  - dvanduzer 11y ago
    Are you talking about software that provides relevant information for any human making a general decision? Or are you describing another kind of software?
tbrownaw 11y ago
General intelligence, to me, is defined as the ability to create a greater intelligence. Define "greater". And since your definition is recursive, define your base case. I'll suggest that "intelligence" is about how much information you can extract from a given set of data. And since information theory says any given set of data only has a limited amount of information in it, this would imply that "intelligence" is not potentially unbounded but is on a scale of 0%-100%.
emiliobumachar 11y ago
Would having and raising children more intelligent than oneself count?

maaaats 11y ago

If you like blog posts like these, check out the book Rationality: From AI to zombies. Basically a compilation of these posts.

roryokane 11y ago
Link: https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/ https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/. The ebook collection has a suggested price of $5.00, and a minimum price of $0.00.

mangeletti 11y ago

Wow, this is really interesting... I'm going to return later to read all the comments herein and in the article.

YokoZar 11y ago

While the author has a great underlying point, I find this style of writing a particular disservice: "Perhaps 5% of the population has enough abstract reasoning skill to verbally understand that the above heuristics would be useful once these heuristics are pointed out." This is a version of "you, enlightened reader, are the special chosen few" - to me it reads no different in rationalist essays as when it gets pitched to me by multi-level marketers selling their get rich quick schemes. If you're familiar with reading bullshit such an appeal to the reader's vanity should immediately send up a few red flags, and it can completely detract from what would otherwise be a reasonable piece.

jere 11y ago
The site has always given me that vibe. I'm not sure I understand the point of a bunch of people getting together to celebrate how smart they are. Especially since they're pulling statistics out of thin air and using unconvincing examples: you're telling me most comedians don't keep track of which jokes are getting laughs?! My final impression: https://xkcd.com/874/ https://xkcd.com/874/