I’ve noticed such user-specific downvotes tend to be a lot more common lately, not just for old folk like us but new folk too. E.g. User:ABrooks made a post about FAI that didn’t fit in with local ideas, and consequently almost all of his comments were immediately downvoted. Only −1, but that’s enough to significantly bias folks’ intuitions about how charitable they should be when reading a comment. Various people have noticed weird voting patterns recently, normally in the form of heavy downvoting of seemingly relatively innocuous comments. I’ve also noticed that “yay our side, boo their side” comments tend to be very highly upvoted, moreso than a year or two ago. Nothing to do about it, but it might be worth a discussion posts along the lines of “LessWrong has become somewhat more stupid lately, don’t take the downvotes too personally”. But probably not. (It’s not like LessWrong was ever that elite anyway; too much evaporative cooling which resulted in a lot of people who strongly agree with Eliezer even when he’s wrong and even when they don’t know why he’s right. (I used to lean in that direction.) But it’s still kinda sad; there aren’t any publicly open alternatives.)
. User:ABrooks made a post about FAI that didn’t fit in with local ideas, and consequently almost all of his comments were immediately downvoted.
Link? I don’t see a post by him.
Edit: Found it. It’s one I downvoted but without it having enough impact on me to even remember that ABrooks is a user. I believe I stopped reading after the first couple of paragraphs after it introduce a premise that seemed fundamentally absurd. Something to do with it being not being theoretically possible to create an AI without teaching it to think through interaction. (I mean… what? Identify the thing that is an AI after it has been taught to think then combine bits of matter in such a way that you have that AI. Basic physical reductionism!)
I’m a little surprised that he got mass downvoted (ie. of other comments, not that particular post). For that matter I’m a little surprised that the specific post got significantly downvoted. Usually things far more stupid than that stay positive*. Did he get into personal bickering with a specific individual at all? That’s what I usually associate with mass downvotes.
* “Usually things far more stupid than that stay positive” of course really means “of posts that are far more stupid than that immediately spring to my mind most are those that are not downvoted.”
Something to do with it being not being theoretically possible to create an AI without teaching it to think through interaction. (I mean… what? Identify the thing that is an AI after it has been taught to think then combine bits of matter in such a way that you have that AI. Basic physical reductionism!)
Well, one could make a computational complexity argument that there is no way to ” Identify the thing that is an AI after it has been taught to think” other then actually interacting with it.
Sure, but once you do so, then you can build another that you didn’t interact with.
On the other hand, how much variation do you need to introduce before you can declare that the second copy is a different intelligence than the one that you copied it from? And how sure can you be that it’s still an AI after this variation? So there’s an argument to be made there, although I’m far from convinced for now.
Nothing to do about it, but it might be worth a discussion posts along the lines of “LessWrong has become somewhat more stupid lately, don’t take the downvotes too personally”.
I have the reverse message. I say be willing just take them personally when appropriate. I don’t really mind people having a personal problem with me but if people sincerely negatively evaluate comments that I consider high quality then that distresses me. After all if I hear “Fuck you! You’re a dick.” then the subject matter is subjective and they may have a point. If I hear “You’re wrong!” then I may, after double checking, actually have to evaluate the accuser as being poor at thinking. Too much of that just leads to contempt and bitterness.
It’s not like LessWrong was ever that elite anyway; too much evaporative cooling which resulted in a lot of people who strongly agree with Eliezer even when he’s wrong and even when they don’t know why he’s right.
(Old-Timer Topper:) That’s nutthin! Do you actually think kids these days have read enough rationality literature—from Eliezer or otherwise—for them to be able to even know which beliefs to take on faith without knowing why? I don’t see much in the way of (correct) application of rationality principles for me to be declaring as done without basis.
I’ve noticed such user-specific downvotes tend to be a lot more common lately, not just for old folk like us but new folk too. E.g. User:ABrooks made a post about FAI that didn’t fit in with local ideas, and consequently almost all of his comments were immediately downvoted. Only −1, but that’s enough to significantly bias folks’ intuitions about how charitable they should be when reading a comment. Various people have noticed weird voting patterns recently, normally in the form of heavy downvoting of seemingly relatively innocuous comments. I’ve also noticed that “yay our side, boo their side” comments tend to be very highly upvoted, moreso than a year or two ago. Nothing to do about it, but it might be worth a discussion posts along the lines of “LessWrong has become somewhat more stupid lately, don’t take the downvotes too personally”. But probably not. (It’s not like LessWrong was ever that elite anyway; too much evaporative cooling which resulted in a lot of people who strongly agree with Eliezer even when he’s wrong and even when they don’t know why he’s right. (I used to lean in that direction.) But it’s still kinda sad; there aren’t any publicly open alternatives.)
Link? I don’t see a post by him.
Edit: Found it. It’s one I downvoted but without it having enough impact on me to even remember that ABrooks is a user. I believe I stopped reading after the first couple of paragraphs after it introduce a premise that seemed fundamentally absurd. Something to do with it being not being theoretically possible to create an AI without teaching it to think through interaction. (I mean… what? Identify the thing that is an AI after it has been taught to think then combine bits of matter in such a way that you have that AI. Basic physical reductionism!)
I’m a little surprised that he got mass downvoted (ie. of other comments, not that particular post). For that matter I’m a little surprised that the specific post got significantly downvoted. Usually things far more stupid than that stay positive*. Did he get into personal bickering with a specific individual at all? That’s what I usually associate with mass downvotes.
* “Usually things far more stupid than that stay positive” of course really means “of posts that are far more stupid than that immediately spring to my mind most are those that are not downvoted.”
Well, one could make a computational complexity argument that there is no way to ” Identify the thing that is an AI after it has been taught to think” other then actually interacting with it.
Sure, but once you do so, then you can build another that you didn’t interact with.
On the other hand, how much variation do you need to introduce before you can declare that the second copy is a different intelligence than the one that you copied it from? And how sure can you be that it’s still an AI after this variation? So there’s an argument to be made there, although I’m far from convinced for now.
I have the reverse message. I say be willing just take them personally when appropriate. I don’t really mind people having a personal problem with me but if people sincerely negatively evaluate comments that I consider high quality then that distresses me. After all if I hear “Fuck you! You’re a dick.” then the subject matter is subjective and they may have a point. If I hear “You’re wrong!” then I may, after double checking, actually have to evaluate the accuser as being poor at thinking. Too much of that just leads to contempt and bitterness.
(Old-Timer Topper:) That’s nutthin! Do you actually think kids these days have read enough rationality literature—from Eliezer or otherwise—for them to be able to even know which beliefs to take on faith without knowing why? I don’t see much in the way of (correct) application of rationality principles for me to be declaring as done without basis.