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by mike_hearn 552 days ago
Wouldn't it be the reverse? The word unreasonable is often used as a synonym for volatile, unpredictable, even dangerous. That's because "reason" is viewed as highly predictable. Two people who rationally reason from the same set of known facts would be expected to arrive at similar conclusions.

I think what Ilya is trying to get at here is more like: someone very smart can seem "unpredictable" to someone who is not smart, because the latter can't easily reason at the same speed or quality as the former. It's not that reason itself is unpredictable, it's that if you can reason quickly enough you might reach conclusions nobody saw coming in advance, even if they make sense.

2 comments

Your second paragraph is basically what I'm saying but with the extension that we only actually care about reasoning when we're in these kinds of asymmetric situations. But the asymmetry isn't about the other reasoner, it's about the problem. By definition we only have to reason through something if we can't predict (don't know) the answer.

I think it's important for us to all understand that if we build a machine to do valuable reasoning, we cannot know a priori what it will tell us or what it will do.

they only arrive at the same conclusion if they both have the same goal.

one could be about maximising wealth while respecting other human beings, the other could be about maximising wealth without respecting other human beings.

Both could be presented same facts and 100% logical but arrive at different conclusions.