I thought that everything in this article was obviously both true and important—enough that I promoted it as soon as I saw it, instead of waiting for it to be upvoted further. To clarify: It’s not about low-level versus high-level goals. It’s not about what you can do immediately versus later, or with or without further resources, or with or without breaking it down further.
It’s about what you know how to solve, versus what you don’t know how to solve; and the feeling of internal panic when you confront something you don’t know how to solve; and the worst possible thing you can do to deal with that internal panic, which is to instantly propose a solution that turns it into a “task” but one that won’t work. And HughRistik has an incredibly good point about the external converse, when people who are already good at something give advice that completely fails to turn a problem into a task. Alicorn’s post is true and important because making the explicit distinction may help people on both the internal and external problems.
I encountered this over the Summit weekend. 1.5 hour lunch with a couple of people who could not stop solving the Friendly AI problem.
I suggest there’s a third major way to fail, especially among smart people: crunching the problems into tasks and stopping. Not actually doing the tasks.
I encountered this over the Summit weekend. 1.5 hour lunch with a couple of people who could not stop solving the Friendly AI problem.
Out of curiosity, what is the most promising suggestion regarding Friendly AI that you’ve heard from someone who had probably spent fewer than 48 hours thinking about it?
I thought that everything in this article was obviously both true and important—enough that I promoted it as soon as I saw it, instead of waiting for it to be upvoted further. To clarify: It’s not about low-level versus high-level goals. It’s not about what you can do immediately versus later, or with or without further resources, or with or without breaking it down further.
It’s about what you know how to solve, versus what you don’t know how to solve; and the feeling of internal panic when you confront something you don’t know how to solve; and the worst possible thing you can do to deal with that internal panic, which is to instantly propose a solution that turns it into a “task” but one that won’t work. And HughRistik has an incredibly good point about the external converse, when people who are already good at something give advice that completely fails to turn a problem into a task. Alicorn’s post is true and important because making the explicit distinction may help people on both the internal and external problems.
I encountered this over the Summit weekend. 1.5 hour lunch with a couple of people who could not stop solving the Friendly AI problem.
I suggest there’s a third major way to fail, especially among smart people: crunching the problems into tasks and stopping. Not actually doing the tasks.
Out of curiosity, what is the most promising suggestion regarding Friendly AI that you’ve heard from someone who had probably spent fewer than 48 hours thinking about it?
This is a great example, and was very helpful to me in understanding the article; I think it, or one substantially like it, should be added.