Yudkowsky and Soares' Book Is Lacking (2025)

#1

Post by measurablefunc » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 8:10 PM UTC

Yudkowsky and Soares' Book Is Lacking (2025)
oscarmdavies.substack.com

Re: Yudkowsky and Soares' Book Is Lacking (2025)

#2

Post by functionmouse » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 8:20 PM UTC

> they don’t present any evidence, or discuss how computers might get to intelligence.

Rationalists don't need pesky things like data or evidence to assert their desired conclusions as fact. Don't you know, you can assert your vibes as science, now.

Re: Yudkowsky and Soares' Book Is Lacking (2025)

#3

Post by lern_too_spel » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

Is this an AI bot writing about why AI cannot exist like some new kind of AI performance art? What are we looking at here?

Re: Yudkowsky and Soares' Book Is Lacking (2025)

#4

Post by tom_ » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 10:08 PM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #3

Is this an AI bot writing about why AI cannot exist like some new kind of AI performance art? What are we looking at here?

It read to me like a book review written by a person.

What do you see as the bot tells? I didn't spot the usual obvious things, and by the time I got to the end I wasn't feeling vaguely suspicious. (But, if this is actually AI-written, and possibly quite transparently so, then I've clearly missed something, and I'd quite like to know what!)

Re: Yudkowsky and Soares' Book Is Lacking (2025)

#5

Post by benlivengood » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 11:38 PM UTC

If we had a theory of intelligence that allowed us to say "this is why and how machines are intelligent and how they become more intelligent" we'd likely be very close to solving the alignment problem as well, obviating the need for the book.

The book fits into the current unknown-unknowns world of rapidly increasing machine-learning capabilities across most domains where there is little evidence to suggest that "intelligence" is limited to the human limit (which is already quite high relative to the 99.9th percentile; we get a few Einstein, Von Neumann, Turing class people in a century) or the human body.

Re: Yudkowsky and Soares' Book Is Lacking (2025)

#6

Post by fwlr » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:04 AM UTC

    So, they say, computers are not smart now, we don’t know what intelligence is, we don’t know how to make computers smart, but they certainly will be intelligent soon.

There is currently a trillion-dollar corporation whose valuation largely rests on their progress in solving this. It is beyond asinine to require it from a book, as though it were table stakes for discussion.

Re: Yudkowsky and Soares' Book Is Lacking (2025)

#7

Post by lern_too_spel » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

tom_ wrote: post #4

lern_too_spel wrote: post #3

Is this an AI bot writing about why AI cannot exist like some new kind of AI performance art? What are we looking at here?

It read to me like a book review written by a person. What do you see as the bot tells? I didn't spot the usual obvious things, and by the time I got to the end I wasn't feeling vaguely suspicious. (But, if this is actually AI-written, and possibly quite transparently so, then I've clearly missed something, and I'd quite like to know what!)

It was so poorly written that I assumed there was some other reason for it being posted than the content of the article.