--- Charles D Hixson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Tom McCabe wrote: > > --- Eugen Leitl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > >> On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 01:24:04PM -0700, Tom > McCabe > >> wrote: > >> > >> > >>> Unless, of course, that human turns out to be > evil > >>> > >> and > >> > >> That why you need to screen them, and build a > group > >> with > >> checks and balances. > >> > > > > If our psychology is so advanced that we're > willing to > > trust the fate of the world with it, why have we > had > > no success at getting prisoners to avoid > committing > > further crimes, even when we have them under 24/7 > > control and observation for years on end? Keep in > mind > > that Hitler, Stalin, and the like, at age 20, > would > > have seemed like normal, regular guys. > > > FWIW, I seem to remember that Stalin at age 20 was a > political terrorist > and a bank robber.
Hmmm... While that's not exactly normal, it's still quite common for teenagers to be criminals/political revolutionaries. Even if Stalin would have been screened out, I'm sure you could dig up plenty of world dictators who wouldn't have been. > OTOH, my real problem with "...a group with checks > and balances." is who > gets to specify those self-same checks and balances. > E.g., I can't > think of a single government official or leader I > would trust that is in > any position of power. (Well, perhaps one, but her > "position of power" > is rather scant in the amount of power.) > > ... > > Obviously there is some selection effect (people > who > > are nasty jerks tend to want power more than > others), > > but it's not so severe that an insignificant part > of > > the population falls under the category of > "potential > > evil overlord". > > > eh? You must not be following the same news that I > follow. I refer you to the studies by Zimbardo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment) and Milgram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment). > > ... > > A computer system that we can design to spec, test > to > > an arbitrary degree of precision in a sandbox > computer > > environment, and for which the mathematics of > behavior > > are tractable. > > > This strikes me as...unlikely. Great, if you can > manage it, but just a > bit unlikely. (Not the design to spec part. That's > doable. But both > the specs themselves and the "mathematics of > behavior are tractable." > seem more than a bit dubious I'm not a professional mathematician, but I'm sure that the behavior of a computer system is a lot more tractable than any human's. > ----- > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: > http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Shape Yahoo! in your own image. Join our Network Research Panel today! http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7 ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&user_secret=7d7fb4d8
