[ExI] AI

[Dan TheBookMan]

Bill W wrote:

> BTW  the medical profession is too conservative.  Drugs and procedures proven safe and effective in Europe and elsewhere should be available here.  Some drugs have side effects that are beneficial and should be approved for off label use. 

Well, why not try the libertarian approach? That is get rid of FDA controls here. It’s the regulatory regime that makes it hard for therapies to reach customers, usually causing trees long delays and imposing import prohibitions on therapies in use in other advanced nations. 

Regards,

Dan

> On Oct 15, 2021, at 11:49 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> I dispute a few things about that article, Jason.  I will nod, say that your argument makes complete sense, and then totally refuse to change my mind or admit even the slightest possibility that you might be right.
> (This is the correct Bayesian action: if I know that a false argument sounds just as convincing as a true argument, argument convincingness provides no evidence either way. I should ignore it and stick with my prior.)
> 
> 
> If a false argument makes as much sense as a true one, the thing to do is not put your hands over your ears like the monkey, but investigate further - that is, if knowing the difference is important. Truly absurd-sounding things have been found to be true, so you suspend your disbelief of new arguments and research further. If it is some historical fact like an example he gives, then to me it is not important at all and never has been.  Whether Polynesians got to South America is immaterial to me, though it may give historians something to do.
> 
> There is a happy medium between never changing and changing every time the wind changes.
> 
> re 'epistemic learned helplessness' - if it turns out that there is no way of deciding whether to change your mind
> then you keep what you have.  But turning a deaf ear to new arguments and counterarguments seems a recipe for Luddism.  
> 
> BTW  the medical profession is too conservative.  Drugs and procedures proven safe and effective in Europe and elsewhere should be available here.  Some drugs have side effects that are beneficial and should be approved for off label use.  I'll bet that if you did a survey of physicians you would find that all of them are very tired of patients bringing new findings from the web and asking to get those treatments.  The physicians, overwhelmed as they always are, don't want to investigate every new claim.  They wait for meta-analyses, and then change  Seems right to me, but one thing stands in the way of change:  you lose the support of your profession in some ways.  You are now using nonstandard methods and your colleagues won't support you in court, should that happen.  Forced into too much conservatism.    bill w
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 9:39 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> Hi Bill,
>> 
>> Good question. Your post reminded me of an article I read recently about why it may be a good thing that people are resistant to changing their minds so easily: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learned-helplessness/
>> 
>> Jason
>> 
>>> On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 8:05 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>> A while back someone said that the AI playing chess would learn from its mistake, and never make that one again.  Fooled me once.......  
>>> 
>>> So Take a look at humans:  I learned very quickly when I started teaching that students at all levels were repeating their mistakes.  So often I would caution students about it and write it on their essay exams.
>>> 
>>> How successful was I ?  Some - the better students, of course - the rich get richer.
>>> 
>>> College students average about 107 IQ.  Half a standard deviation is significant.  
>>> 
>>> How many college students are poor at changing, I dunno.  One third?  One half?  All of them to some extent?  I would guess a majority of people below 100 IQ would be rather poor.
>>> 
>>> Translation:  repeating mistakes and not changing is a form of conservatism.  The body and mind are conservative - keep what you got till it ain't workin' no mo.   
>>> 
>>> If I have learned nothing from Quora but one thing, it is this:  people have a hard time changing anything.  I get questions all the time about how to form constructive and healthy habits.  How much of the self-help industry is devoted to changing and building new habits?  If they were that successful there wouldn't be so many books and talks and seminars and videos etc. on self-help.  People need help with self-help, which I am sure you have noticed. 
>>> 
>>> So if you could design future people would you change the ease at which we can change?  People's heads are apparently hard, though I have no direct data.     bill w
>>> _________________________________________
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