I assumed John was pointing at verifying that perhaps the chemicals used in the production of the chair might have some really bad impact on the environmnet, start causing a problem with the food chain eco system and make food much scarcers for everyone -- including the person who bought the chair -- in the meaningfully near future. Something a long those lines.
As you note, verifying the chair functions as you want -- as a place to sit that is comfortable -- is pretty easy. Most of us probably do that without even really thinking about it. But will this chair "kill me" in the future is not so obvious or easy to assess.
I suspect at the core, this is a question about an assumption about evaluating a simple/non-complex world and doing so in an inherently complex world do doesn't allow true separability in simple and independant structures.
In terms of the hard to verify aspect, while it's true that any one person will face any number of challenges do we live in a world where one person does anything on their own?
How would the open-source model influence outcomes? When pretty much anyone can take a look, and persumable many do, does the level of verifcation, or ease of verification, improve in your model?
Kind of speculative on my part and nothing I've tried to research for the comment. I am wondering is the tort version of reasonableness is a good model for new, poorly understood technologies. Somewhat thinking about the picture in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CZQYP7BBY4r9bdxtY/the-best-lay-argument-is-not-a-simple-english-yud-essay distinguising between narrow AI and AGI.
Tort law reasonableness seems okay for narrow AI. I am not so sure about the AGI setting though.
So I wonder if a stronger liability model would not be better until we have a good bit more direct experience with more AGIish models and functionality/products and a better data set to assess.
The Public Choice type cynic in me has to wonder if the law is making a strong case for the tort version of liability under a reasonable man standard if I should not think it's more about limiting the liability for harms the companies might be enabling (I'm thinking what would we have if social media companies faced stronger obligations for what is posted on their networks rather that the imunity they were granted) and less about protecting the general society.
Over time perhaps liability moves more towards the tort world of a reasonable man but is that were this should start? Seems like a lower bar than is justified.
I find this rather exciting -- and clearly the cryonics implications are positive. But beyond that, and yes, this is really scifi down the road thinking here, the implications for education/learning and treatment of things like PTSD seems huge. Assuming we can figure out how to control these. Of course I'm ignoring some of the real down sides like manipulation of memory for bad reasons or an Orwellean application. I am not sure those types of risks at that large in most open societies.
Thanks. Just took a quick glance as the abstract but looks interesting. Will have something to read while waiting at the airport for a flight tomorrow.
Is that thought one that is generally shared for those working in the field of memory or more something that is new/cutting edge? It's a very interesting statement so if you have some pointers to a (not too difficult) a paper on how that works, or just had the time to write something up, I for one would be interested and greatful.
Actually checking those hypotheses statistically would be a pretty involved project; subtle details of accounting tend to end up relevant to this sort of thing, and the causality checks are nontrivial. But it's the sort of thing economists have tools to test.
Yes, it would be a challenge statistically, and measurment a challenge as well. It's not really about subtle accounting details but the economic costs -- opportunity costs, subjective costs, expected costs. Additionally, economics has been trying to explain the existance, size and nature of the firm at least a century but still has not come to a firm conclusion.
I suspect a big part of the problem here is that a firm is a rather complex "thing" and and it's not clear any single explanation that is logically consistent internally can explain the phenomena as the whole does not necessarily hold to some easily understood collection of parts. For instance, at a certain size do we think of a firm as a market particiant maximizing profits (or some internal dominance metric), a hybrid part market participant and part internal market or perhaps no longs even a market participant even when providing goods/services to some external market but really functioning as an alternative market form for those acting within the that large firm? If you accept the view that explaining the firm requires explanations at each of those levels and believe such a theory exists, then you also have to believe that some unified theory of micro and macro economics also exist as it's basically the same problem.
So I'm not sure it's correct to say "economist have tools to test" in the sense of and they will come up with clear and uncontested answers rather than perhaps have shed a bit of light on something but have not yet identified the elephant they are touching.
First, I have to note this is way more than I can wrap my head around in one reading (in fact it was more than I could read in one sitting so really have not completed reading it) but thank you for posting this as it presents a very complicated subject in a framework I find more accessible that prior discussings here (or anywhere else I've looked at). But then I'm just a curious outsider to this issue who occasionally explores the discussion so information overload is normal I think.
I particularly like the chart and how it laid out the various states/outcomes.
That is certainly a more directly related, non-obvious aspect for verification. Thanks.