The Nonlinear Library LW - On the Contrary, Steelmanning Is Normal; ITT-Passing Is Niche by Zack M Davis
Jan 10, 2024
07:03
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: On the Contrary, Steelmanning Is Normal; ITT-Passing Is Niche, published by Zack M Davis on January 10, 2024 on LessWrong.
Rob Bensinger argues that "ITT-passing and civility are good; 'charity' is bad; steelmanning is niche".
The ITT - Ideological Turing Test - is an exercise in which one attempts to present one's interlocutor's views as persuasively as the interlocutor themselves can, coined by Bryan Caplan in analogy to the Turing Test for distinguishing between humans and intelligent machines. (An AI that can pass as human must presumably possess human-like understanding; an opponent of an idea that can pass as an advocate for it presumably must possess an advocate's understanding.) "Steelmanning" refers to the practice of addressing a stronger version of an interlocutor's argument, coined in disanalogy to "strawmanning", the crime of addressing a weaker version of an interlocutor's argument in the hopes of fooling an audience (or oneself) that the original argument has been rebutted.
Bensinger describes steelmanning as "a useful niche skill", but thinks it isn't "a standard thing you bring out in most arguments." Instead, he writes, discussions should be structured around object-level learning, trying to pass each other's Ideological Turing Test, or trying resolve cruxes.
I think Bensinger has it backwards: the Ideological Turing Test is a useful niche skill, but it doesn't belong on a list of things to organize a discussion around, whereas something like steelmanning naturally falls out of object-level learning. Let me explain.
The ITT is a test of your ability to model someone else's models of some real-world phenomena of interest. But usually, I'm much more interested in modeling the real-world phenomena of interest directly, rather than modeling someone else's models of it.
I couldn't pass an ITT for advocates of Islam or extrasensory perception. On the one hand, this does represent a distinct deficit in my ability to model what the advocates of these ideas are thinking, a tragic gap in my comprehension of reality, which I would hope to remedy in the Glorious Transhumanist Future if that were a real thing. On the other hand, facing the constraints of our world, my inability to pass an ITT for Islam or ESP seems ...
basically fine? I already have strong reasons to doubt the existence of ontologically fundamental mental entities. I accept my ignorance of the reasons someone might postulate otherwise, not out of contempt, but because I just don't have the time.
Or think of it this way: as a selfish seeker of truth speaking to another selfish seeker of truth, when would I want to try to pass my interlocutor's ITT, or want my interlocutor to try to pass my ITT?
In the "outbound" direction, I'm not particularly selfishly interested in passing my interlocutor's ITT because, again, I usually don't care much about other people's beliefs, as contrasted to the reality that those beliefs are reputedly supposed to track. I listen to my interlocutor hoping to learn from them, but if some part of what they say seems hopelessly wrong, it doesn't seem profitable to pretend that it isn't until I can reproduce the hopeless wrongness in my own words.
Crucially, the same is true in the "inbound" direction. I don't expect people to be able to pass my ITT before criticizing my ideas. That would make it harder for people to inform me about flaws in my ideas!
But if I'm not particularly interested in passing my interlocutor's ITT or in my interlocutor passing mine, and my interlocutor presumably (by symmetry) feels the same way, why would we bother?
All this having been said, I absolutely agree that, all else being equal, the ability to pass ITTs is desirable. It's useful as a check that you and your interlocutor are successfully communicating, rather than talking past each other. I...
Rob Bensinger argues that "ITT-passing and civility are good; 'charity' is bad; steelmanning is niche".
The ITT - Ideological Turing Test - is an exercise in which one attempts to present one's interlocutor's views as persuasively as the interlocutor themselves can, coined by Bryan Caplan in analogy to the Turing Test for distinguishing between humans and intelligent machines. (An AI that can pass as human must presumably possess human-like understanding; an opponent of an idea that can pass as an advocate for it presumably must possess an advocate's understanding.) "Steelmanning" refers to the practice of addressing a stronger version of an interlocutor's argument, coined in disanalogy to "strawmanning", the crime of addressing a weaker version of an interlocutor's argument in the hopes of fooling an audience (or oneself) that the original argument has been rebutted.
Bensinger describes steelmanning as "a useful niche skill", but thinks it isn't "a standard thing you bring out in most arguments." Instead, he writes, discussions should be structured around object-level learning, trying to pass each other's Ideological Turing Test, or trying resolve cruxes.
I think Bensinger has it backwards: the Ideological Turing Test is a useful niche skill, but it doesn't belong on a list of things to organize a discussion around, whereas something like steelmanning naturally falls out of object-level learning. Let me explain.
The ITT is a test of your ability to model someone else's models of some real-world phenomena of interest. But usually, I'm much more interested in modeling the real-world phenomena of interest directly, rather than modeling someone else's models of it.
I couldn't pass an ITT for advocates of Islam or extrasensory perception. On the one hand, this does represent a distinct deficit in my ability to model what the advocates of these ideas are thinking, a tragic gap in my comprehension of reality, which I would hope to remedy in the Glorious Transhumanist Future if that were a real thing. On the other hand, facing the constraints of our world, my inability to pass an ITT for Islam or ESP seems ...
basically fine? I already have strong reasons to doubt the existence of ontologically fundamental mental entities. I accept my ignorance of the reasons someone might postulate otherwise, not out of contempt, but because I just don't have the time.
Or think of it this way: as a selfish seeker of truth speaking to another selfish seeker of truth, when would I want to try to pass my interlocutor's ITT, or want my interlocutor to try to pass my ITT?
In the "outbound" direction, I'm not particularly selfishly interested in passing my interlocutor's ITT because, again, I usually don't care much about other people's beliefs, as contrasted to the reality that those beliefs are reputedly supposed to track. I listen to my interlocutor hoping to learn from them, but if some part of what they say seems hopelessly wrong, it doesn't seem profitable to pretend that it isn't until I can reproduce the hopeless wrongness in my own words.
Crucially, the same is true in the "inbound" direction. I don't expect people to be able to pass my ITT before criticizing my ideas. That would make it harder for people to inform me about flaws in my ideas!
But if I'm not particularly interested in passing my interlocutor's ITT or in my interlocutor passing mine, and my interlocutor presumably (by symmetry) feels the same way, why would we bother?
All this having been said, I absolutely agree that, all else being equal, the ability to pass ITTs is desirable. It's useful as a check that you and your interlocutor are successfully communicating, rather than talking past each other. I...