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There is a certain kind of person who has a very cynical model of other people's minds and also acts on it. Upon some thought, I've realized that I find interacting with such people most exhausting, and these people are almost automatically dropped off my list of people I want to stay in touch with.
The best example that comes to mind is the director at the firm I recently did an internship at. It was a small firm, and he used to manage the day-to-day operations, but he spent most of his time just policing us. He would call me into his office if he spotted me sitting with my legs crossed, email or scold us if we took longer lunch breaks, and call us back if we left 10 minutes early on a Saturday. I also heard him complaining about the co-working space providing extendable chairs, since it made the employees too comfortable. He was also very insistent on keeping all the lights on at all times, even when all the employees complained that the white lights were too bright. I also heard him scolding an employee for taking a route that was supposed to be faster but with less oversight, even though this employee had been directed to help finish a lagging project as soon as possible.
This person genuinely believes that all his employees are somehow trying to rob him or just waste the company's money, and that they won't work at all if he stops being this rude and vigilant, while ignoring the fact that he's obviously making everyone less productive (for example, by keeping harsh lights on all the time).
There was also a co-intern of mine who once mentioned to another colleague that most people at our college are selfish. I immediately responded, "No, how can you believe that?" to which he replied that, in his view, most students at IITM are selfish. I was baffled by the response, but I realized that in light of this statement, all his other behaviors were perfectly explained. (He was generally rude to others and acted as if the other person was trying to take something from him, be it his time, insights, etc.)
My grandmother also has a similarly cynical model of other people's minds, and when I think about it, I guess this is why no one in the village likes her.
I wonder if others have similar or different reasons for finding certain people absurdly off-putting or dislikeable, apart from obvious ones like shouting at waiters for no reason, etc.
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the grammar in this post is somewhat polished by Claude. see the original draft in the chat, here: https://claude.ai/share/a5d533d5-a2be-4269-bae1-ab1020694f04
There is a heuristic saying "every accusation is a confession", which suggests that these people are selfish (the co-intern) or trying to rob everyone else (the director), and they simply "generalize from one example" (themselves). Which is one more reason to avoid them.
I wonder if others have similar or different reasons for finding certain people absurdly off-putting or dislikeable
I dislike extraverted people who have no empathy for introverts and assume that if you are trying to focus on something, you must be sad, and it is their duty to cheer you up by some unwanted social interaction.
But that's unrelated.
One reason advanced AI might not be able to figure out "all the physics" is that the observation and analysis of "laws of universe" may not be constrained by intelligence but rather time. It could be the case that there are some regular patterns periodic in billions of years. Intelligence would not be able to do much, in this case.
1Physics is not something that you solve by “acquiring more data”. The underlying laws are incredibly simple. Famously Einstein derived both the special and general theory of relativity almost only from pure thought. Experimental data is needed as confirmation. As a theoretical physicist myself, I have no doubt that ASI will be able to essentially figure out “all of physics”.
Thanks for replying. I think I can see where our disagreement is. I'm afraid the way science has worked so far may not be the case in the future. Somehow we have arrived at *almost right laws only from pure thought. Reality may be way more complicated which we may only be able to figure out by acquiring more data.
The progress in fundamental physics has always been towards increasing simplicity and this is not going to change. The universe is an incredibly constrained system and it is almost impossible to come up with a consistent unifying model (we are still looking for it). We already have more than enough data for a sufficiently intelligent entity to figure out "the theory of everything", it is only a lack of imagination.
I would be *very surprised if it turned out to be true, but I grant that you could be correct, although I would assign a very low probability to it.
You are entitled to your opinion but I'm a tenured theoretical physicist and the view I expressed is not controversial and shared by most people in the field. Most theoretical physicists are really scared or excited by AI. I believe it is an almost consensus in the community that AI will eventually "solve physics", and many believe that this could happen fairly soon.
I think yes. I am assuming only, let's say, an oscillatory behaviour with a time period T = a billion years. Observing this phenomenon itself should take us that much time, and it is distinct from the problem of induction, at least in this case.