Firstly, this is good, I mean really good, I mean superstimulus/I won’t get any work done until I finish reading this good. [I appreciate the irony.]
A few thoughts now I’m finished:
Of the human characters I found Hanna’s perspective most interesting. It would be nice to see more of her thought process for constructing the AI, particularly as we find out about a lot of its restrictions retrospectively. [Though given we don’t actually know what restrictions would be necessary I see why you avoided being too explicit.]
I really enjoyed it, but I wonder how comprehensible it would be for someone without a LW background, the inferential distance for AI can be quite high. You do however seem to explain it very well as far as I can tell.
Much as I know the problems of generalising from fictional evidence this has significantly increased my measure of the plausibility of a fun theory compliant utopia being possible.
It is a very good attempt at making a non-anthropomorphic AI. It might help with the celestia avatar had less of a consistent personality in different iterations, so was obviously adapting itself to what a particular individual found persuasive.
Have you considered posting it on Fimfiction? The community seems to give good constructive feedback and there are already a few rationalist-ish fics and a LW group.
Making the different instances of Celestia more distinct and obviously manipulative might address the worries some people were having with the statements about relationships it was making. They will seem less unsettling if it is obvious it is saying them because the college age male character is likely to believe them.
Having radically different personalities for dealign with different individuals would make sense, most obviously [the business/beer guy] gets obviously frustrated with Celestia’s tone/vagueness, perhaps he would respond better to a more informal friendly God/AI.
[Aside, I found it really hard not to say ‘she’ when referring to Celestia here. ]
Firstly, this is good, I mean really good, I mean superstimulus/I won’t get any work done until I finish reading this good. [I appreciate the irony.]
A few thoughts now I’m finished:
Of the human characters I found Hanna’s perspective most interesting. It would be nice to see more of her thought process for constructing the AI, particularly as we find out about a lot of its restrictions retrospectively. [Though given we don’t actually know what restrictions would be necessary I see why you avoided being too explicit.]
I really enjoyed it, but I wonder how comprehensible it would be for someone without a LW background, the inferential distance for AI can be quite high. You do however seem to explain it very well as far as I can tell.
Much as I know the problems of generalising from fictional evidence this has significantly increased my measure of the plausibility of a fun theory compliant utopia being possible.
It is a very good attempt at making a non-anthropomorphic AI. It might help with the celestia avatar had less of a consistent personality in different iterations, so was obviously adapting itself to what a particular individual found persuasive.
Have you considered posting it on Fimfiction? The community seems to give good constructive feedback and there are already a few rationalist-ish fics and a LW group.
Edit, that became long enough to post as a reply
Making the different instances of Celestia more distinct and obviously manipulative might address the worries some people were having with the statements about relationships it was making. They will seem less unsettling if it is obvious it is saying them because the college age male character is likely to believe them.
Having radically different personalities for dealign with different individuals would make sense, most obviously [the business/beer guy] gets obviously frustrated with Celestia’s tone/vagueness, perhaps he would respond better to a more informal friendly God/AI.
[Aside, I found it really hard not to say ‘she’ when referring to Celestia here. ]