From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Nov 08 2002 - 02:15:16 MST
On Fri, Nov 08, 2002 at 01:11:53PM +1100, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> Eleizer wrote:
> >The
> > strength of seed AI is the theory. You read "Levels of Organization in
> > General Intelligence" and either you get it or you don't.
>
> I think this is true.
I think this approach is wrong. First, the above presupposes that the
theory is so clear, so easily understandable that anybody who actually
gets the signal can "get it" for the whole theory. That requires
*brilliant* writing, something very rarely seen in any subject. There
are just a few such classic publications in any field. Not to disparage
Eliezers writing style, but I would be surprised if he managed to pull
that one off when e.g. Einstein didn't (his papers were good, but they
weren't clear at all). Trying to reach levels of clarity like this is a
long quest for perfection, the harder the more complex the subject. And
the "either you get it, or you wont" approach tends to repel people. If
I didn't get it the first time, why should I ever waste my time trying
to get it a second, even when the problem was a slight misunderstanding
of a term?
The second point is that papers are judged in a context, and this
context aids in understanding them. If I know a paper is part of a
certain research issue I can judge it by looking at how it fits in - who
is cited, what terminology is used, what kinds of experiments and models
are used etc. It doesn't have to agree with anybody else, but it can
draw on the context to provide help for the reader to understand its
meaning and significance. A paper entirely on its own has a far harder
work to do in convincing a reader that it has something important to
say.
What I worry about, Eliezer, is that you will end up like Stephen
Wolfram. You spend the next decades working on your own project in
relative isolation, publishing papers that are ignored by the mainstream
since they don't link to anything that is being done. One day you will
read in the morning paper that somebody else has had your idea, written
about it inside the main context, developed it into a research
sub-discipline that gets funding and lots of helpful smart postdocs, and
eventually has suceeded. At best you might get a footnote when somebody
writes up the history of the research issue.
There is a tremendous power in being part of a community of thinkers
that actually *work* together. Publishing papers that are read means
that you get helpful criticism and that others may try to extend your
ideas in unexpected directions you do not have the time for or didn't
think if. Academia may be a silly place, but it does produce a lot of
research. If you are serious about getting results rather than getting
100% of the cred then it makes sense to join it.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:58:00 MST