I mostly use outside views to mean reference classes, but I agree that this term has expanded to mean more than is originally denoted. I’m not sure how big a problem this is in practice; I think by default phrases in natural language expands to mean more than their technical beginnings (consider phrases like “modulo”, “pop the stack,” etc). My intuition is that zealously guarding against this expansion by specifying new broader words (rather than being precise in-context) seems quite doomed as an overall enterprise, though it might buy you a few years.
A related point is that if we do go with “reference classes” as the preferred phrase, we should be cognizant that for most questions there’s a number of different relevant reference classes, and saying that a particular reference class we’ve picked is the best/only reference class is quite a strong claim, and (as EliezerYudkowsky alludes to) quite susceptible to motivated reasoning.
I agree it’s hard to police how people use a word; thus, I figured it would be better to just taboo the word entirely.
I totally agree that it’s hard to use reference classes correctly, because of the reference class tennis problem. I figured it was outside the scope of this post to explain this, but I was thinking about making a follow-up… at any rate, I’m optimistic that if people actually use the words “reference class” instead of “outside view” this will remind them to notice how there are more than one reference class available, how it’s important to argue that the one you are using is the best, etc.
I mostly use outside views to mean reference classes, but I agree that this term has expanded to mean more than is originally denoted. I’m not sure how big a problem this is in practice; I think by default phrases in natural language expands to mean more than their technical beginnings (consider phrases like “modulo”, “pop the stack,” etc). My intuition is that zealously guarding against this expansion by specifying new broader words (rather than being precise in-context) seems quite doomed as an overall enterprise, though it might buy you a few years.
A related point is that if we do go with “reference classes” as the preferred phrase, we should be cognizant that for most questions there’s a number of different relevant reference classes, and saying that a particular reference class we’ve picked is the best/only reference class is quite a strong claim, and (as EliezerYudkowsky alludes to) quite susceptible to motivated reasoning.
I agree it’s hard to police how people use a word; thus, I figured it would be better to just taboo the word entirely.
I totally agree that it’s hard to use reference classes correctly, because of the reference class tennis problem. I figured it was outside the scope of this post to explain this, but I was thinking about making a follow-up… at any rate, I’m optimistic that if people actually use the words “reference class” instead of “outside view” this will remind them to notice how there are more than one reference class available, how it’s important to argue that the one you are using is the best, etc.