Compared to situational effects, we tend to overestimate the effects of lasting dispositions on people’s behavior — the fundamental attribution error. But I, for one, was only taught to watch out for this error in explaining the behavior of individual humans, even though the bias also appears when explaining the behavior of humans as a species.
It makes me optimistic for the future of humanity—perhaps we really can improve the moral arc of our species. Though it’s unclear to me that the opposite can’t be equally plausible, which just brings me to neutral I suppose.
I’m also not totally sure what the takeaway of this post is.
Sometimes it’s good to check if the chain can still hold you. Do not be tamed by the tug of history. Maybe with a few new tools and techniques you can just get up and walk away — to a place you’ve never seen before.
I am guessing that this is a prompt for individuals to try breaking from their habits/adopt growth mindsets, but I find the conclusion overly abstract.
Yeah, the nuclear example is definitely one way it could not be a good thing. Reading through the LW comments, (once you get past the 100s of comments tangent about killing males and radical feminism) a lot of people thought it was vague. The author said it was just intended as general inspiration.
Another commenter (Gwern?) made the interesting point that the analogy works better if we think of ourselves as the baboons and AGI as humans.
This particular quote really struck me!
It makes me optimistic for the future of humanity—perhaps we really can improve the moral arc of our species. Though it’s unclear to me that the opposite can’t be equally plausible, which just brings me to neutral I suppose.
I’m also not totally sure what the takeaway of this post is.
I am guessing that this is a prompt for individuals to try breaking from their habits/adopt growth mindsets, but I find the conclusion overly abstract.
Yeah, the nuclear example is definitely one way it could not be a good thing. Reading through the LW comments, (once you get past the 100s of comments tangent about killing males and radical feminism) a lot of people thought it was vague. The author said it was just intended as general inspiration.
Another commenter (Gwern?) made the interesting point that the analogy works better if we think of ourselves as the baboons and AGI as humans.