I haven’t downvoted the post, but did seriously contemplate doing so. Besides the obscurity of its context and relevance (as shminux points out), what I don’t like is this:
It seems to be putting a lot of effort into explaining and motivating a couple of awfully specific-looking technical definitions, but it doesn’t really motivate them well and probably whatever future post you have in mind will make the real motivation clearer; and they don’t seem to involve any difficult concepts or serious complexity that would require actual explanation; which leaves this post rather purposeless.
The specificity of the definitions also seems like a bad sign; for instance, whatever you’re going to do with these concepts, can it possibly really matter that a daimon was “created by an AI or group of AIs”? I remark that one of your illustrative examples has a daimon that wasn’t created by an AI or group of AIs. More generally, when I see definitions like these the impression it gives me is that something simple is going to be hidden under a pile of unnecessary complexity. It might be something simple and valuable, in which case clearing away the complexity would make it more useful; or it might be something simple and wrong, in which case clearing away the complexity would make its wrongness more apparent. Either way, it’s probably worth looking harder for the key idea underneath the complexity.
The follow on post is going to address a point about Friendly AI, and an AI going FOOM. The point depends upon the plausibility of the daimon concept, so if there is some technical reason why the concept is unworkable, I thought it might be a good idea to split things into a mini-sequence and deal with those issues first in a post of their own.
So not, I hope, an attempt to hide complexity inside a definition. More an attempt to actually draw out and examine any flaws in the definitions.
I downvoted this post because it does not have any summary upfront, and it’s nearly impossible to figure out the context and how it is relevant to LW.
I haven’t downvoted the post, but did seriously contemplate doing so. Besides the obscurity of its context and relevance (as shminux points out), what I don’t like is this:
It seems to be putting a lot of effort into explaining and motivating a couple of awfully specific-looking technical definitions, but it doesn’t really motivate them well and probably whatever future post you have in mind will make the real motivation clearer; and they don’t seem to involve any difficult concepts or serious complexity that would require actual explanation; which leaves this post rather purposeless.
The specificity of the definitions also seems like a bad sign; for instance, whatever you’re going to do with these concepts, can it possibly really matter that a daimon was “created by an AI or group of AIs”? I remark that one of your illustrative examples has a daimon that wasn’t created by an AI or group of AIs. More generally, when I see definitions like these the impression it gives me is that something simple is going to be hidden under a pile of unnecessary complexity. It might be something simple and valuable, in which case clearing away the complexity would make it more useful; or it might be something simple and wrong, in which case clearing away the complexity would make its wrongness more apparent. Either way, it’s probably worth looking harder for the key idea underneath the complexity.
Thank you.
The follow on post is going to address a point about Friendly AI, and an AI going FOOM. The point depends upon the plausibility of the daimon concept, so if there is some technical reason why the concept is unworkable, I thought it might be a good idea to split things into a mini-sequence and deal with those issues first in a post of their own.
So not, I hope, an attempt to hide complexity inside a definition. More an attempt to actually draw out and examine any flaws in the definitions.
I’ve now edited it to add a summary and context.
Thank you.