Just a friendly note: even as someone who largely agrees with you, I must say that I think a term like “absurd” is generally worth avoiding in relation to positions one disagrees with (I also say this as someone who is guilty of having used this term in similar contexts before).
I think it is better to use less emotionally-laden terms, such as “highly unlikely” or “against everything we have observed so far”, not least since “absurd” hardly adds anything of substance beyond what these alternatives can capture.
To people who disagree strongly with one’s position, “absurd” will probably not be received so well, or at any rate optimally. It may also lead others to label one as overconfident and incapable of thinking clearly about low-probability events. And those of us who try to express skepticism of the kind you do here already face enough of a headwind from people who shake their heads while thinking to themselves “they clearly just don’t get it”.
Thanks for writing this. :-)
Just a friendly note: even as someone who largely agrees with you, I must say that I think a term like “absurd” is generally worth avoiding in relation to positions one disagrees with (I also say this as someone who is guilty of having used this term in similar contexts before).
I think it is better to use less emotionally-laden terms, such as “highly unlikely” or “against everything we have observed so far”, not least since “absurd” hardly adds anything of substance beyond what these alternatives can capture.
To people who disagree strongly with one’s position, “absurd” will probably not be received so well, or at any rate optimally. It may also lead others to label one as overconfident and incapable of thinking clearly about low-probability events. And those of us who try to express skepticism of the kind you do here already face enough of a headwind from people who shake their heads while thinking to themselves “they clearly just don’t get it”.
Other than that, I’m keen to ask: are you familiar with my book Reflections on Intelligence? It makes many of the same points that you make here. The same is true of many of the (other) resources found here: https://magnusvinding.com/2017/12/16/a-contra-ai-foom-reading-list/