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▲ UltraSane 4 hours ago

I don't think neural networks have the same ability of self deception as humans do. A huge reason human world models vary so much is due to them being tied to tribal membership. A huge fraction of all people will not come to a rational worldview derived from accurate data but will start with their tribe's worldview and filter data to match. I personally have never modified my worldview for social reasons and it is surprisingly isolating.

▲vmendi 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This. I believe most people don't act as if objective reality matters, hence their worldview can be arbitrarily aligned to the demands of their social context.

Suppose these two premises are true: 1. Objective reality exists. 2. There's a model and corpus of data that converges to approximate reality better than any other model.

Now, suppose we train different models with data sources restricted to different tribes/ ideologies/worldviews. Can we discover how their internal representations differ from each other, and from objective reality? What would we do with that knowledge?

▲schiffern an hour ago | parent [-]

  >There's a model and corpus of data that converges to approximate reality better than any other model.
How you define "better" exactly is where you smuggle in your messy human value judgements.

I say "better" models are ones which more efficiently convert the entire world to my particular brand of evangelical Christianity. And who are you to say otherwise??? :-/

"No no, I mean accurate not better." Sure. And your model inaccurately denies the existence of Yahweh...

▲throw8373930 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> have the same ability of self deception as humans do

There is universal objective truth, and different opinions or world views are just "tribal membership". If onlymother tribes understood that!

▲UltraSane 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Objective reality exists. Nobody has a car that doesn't need gas or electricity.

▲Lerc 34 minutes ago | parent [-]

Three things here, first of all, there are a few cars in existence that do not need gas or electricity. Compressed air for example. I hear that researchers are doing anazing things using combustible materials to utilise the phase change that water undergoes. It may soon lead to a wonderous age powered by heating water until it can be used as a high pressure gas.

Objective reality does not imply consistent measurement of that reality.

Objective reality may not actually exist. Once you start throwing around relativity and quantum effects things get weird, getting them to play nicely together might be even weirder,