Hopefully_Anonymous2

well, I googled superintelligence and corporations and this came up with the top result for an articulated claim that corporations are superintelligent:

http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/2005/07/understanding-coming-singularity.html#112232394069813120

The top result for an articulated claim that corporations are not superintelligent came from our own Nick Bostrom:

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:4SF3hsyMvasJ:www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/ai.pdf+corporations+superintelligent&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

Nick Bostrom "A superintelligence is an... (read more)

Jeff Kottalam, I'd also like to be directed to such claims and claim justifications (there's a protean claim justification on my blog). I'll resist the temptation of the thread-jacking bait that constitutes your last sentence, and encourage you -and Eliezer- to join me on my blog to continue the conversation on this topic.

Eliezer, not bothering to go after a goal may fall into that category. For example, it's reasonable to choose to live an average life, because one is probably mistaken if one thinks one is likely to have strongly positively deviant outcomes in life, such as becoming a billionaire, or procreating with a 1 in a million beauty, or winning a nobel prize for one's academic contributions, or becoming an A list celebrity. So one may choose never to invest in going after these goals, and devote the balance of one's time and energy to optimizing one's odds of maintaining a median existence, in terms of achievements and experiences. I could name people who seem to be doing that, but you've never heard of them.

Eliezer, Actually, I'd like to read good critiques of descriptions of corporations as superintelligent (or more nuanced versions of that assertion/theory, such as that some corporations may be intelligent, and more intelligent than individual humans).

Where can I find such critiques?

Eliezer, I'm using transparency to mean people wearing lab coats, or making great public displays of doubt being open and honest to themselves and others about why they're doing so. I think it's a standard usage of the word.

Eliezer,

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/174_07_020401/mvdw/mvdw.html

Particularly scary sentence:

"And yet, the practice of medicine involves more than its subservience to evidence or science. It also involves issues such as the meaning of service and feelings of professional pride."

PS I love this line for the double scoop of transparency: "Making a great public display of doubt to convince yourself that you are a rationalist, will do around as much good as wearing a lab coat."

A great post (in a series of great recent posts from Eliezer), and so far the comments on this post are very strong too.

Great post.

Richard, I share your concerns, as expressed in past posts to this blog. Great to see someone else (non-anonymously?) expressing them. I have a longer response on my anonymous blog.

Eliezer, it's a good point, and hopefully writings like these will get the skeptic community (much larger than the reduce existential risk community) buzzing about "bayesian reasoning" as the proper contrast to religion. But it seems to me that religion has already been slayed many, many times by public intellectuals. The cutting edge areas to address, the "hard" areas, are things like universal adult enfranchisement to select policy makers and juries as finders of fact.

Bob, I take it you're not the deceased kiwi atmospheric scientist Robert "Bob" Unwin. But very high quality commentary. I hope that you start an blog to consolidate your observations under this name/pseudonym (as I have done with mine).

Michael, how about the point that you're (rather explicitly now) picking a point upon which to manufacture in-groups and out-groups. In-group: those of us who get motivations for execution. Out-group: those who get honor killings.

The in-groups and out-groups change if the point to get is abrahamic monotheism, or if the point to get is state-sanctioned punitive killings. It seems to me that you're picking one that's particularly salient either to you or to what you imagine your audience to be. I think this gets to the belief as attire/beliefs as cheers for ... (read more)

Michael, I think your example is interestingly rooted in an implied in-group/out-group construction that construction Americans in a flattering way. Consider that you contrast honor killings with forcing kids to go to law school or day camp -that won't necessarily result in their death. It's a flattering contrast that I think constructs America as Western and honor killers as culturally Middle Eastern. But, if we contrasts cultures that approve of state-sanctioned killing of people for moral transgressions, America and the nations of the honor-killers are ... (read more)

I think questioning the Alabama bar analogy is useful within the context of this post. Whose attire is a belief in the value of giving primacy skepticism, critical thinking, etc.? According to Eliezer's performance in the OP, it's not the attire of either Alabama bar patrons or "muslim terrorist suicide bombers" -and both of those may signal more generally, the losers of the American Civil War and non-white brown people. In short, I think there may be a gentrification of critical thinking: it's reserved for an in-group, perhaps in particular nort... (read more)

Silas, My opinion: you seem invested in using "muslim terrorists" for in-group/out-group construction, and I think it's coloring (biasing?) your analysis.

Michael, great criticism of an element of Eliezer's post.

Eliezer, Brilliant post, in my opinion. Clarifying and edifying. I'm looking forward to where you're going to go with this analysis of how bias and belief operate.

Eliezer, first, really great topic. I think it will help move this blog to new and fertile ground. Secondly, in this particular case, I think Cole has a very plausible theory. If this person wanted to rise above being just one person on a panel, to a person in the key diaelectical exchange with the entire room, it might have been a good strategy for them to try to bait the room by professing, to the point of mass irritation, a contrarian stance.

It would be interesting to see she would adjust strategies in a room filled with pagan scientists. If she's completely flexible in external presentation of self, and attention-maximizing, she might then claim to be a fundamentalist christian?

Good catch, Pseudonymous. Robin, my guess is that they're crypto-skeptics, performing for their self-perceived comparative economic/social advantage. Eliezer, please don't make something that will kill us all.

Eliezer, Very interesting post. I'll try to respond when I've had time to read it more closely and to digest it.