Less Wrong: I’m Not Saying People Are Stupid.
The real question isn’t whether people are stupid. The real question is whether people make decisions that matter a lot incorrectly.
I claim that we’ve already, as a society, decided that they do. Ā We’ve replaced kings — human beings — with artificial rule-based decision procedures based on vote-counting and other random esoterica. Ā Likewise the governance of large business enterprises.
We don’t need friendliness in either market or politics — that’s what they already provide, in the sense that there will be a boycott or groundswell against a really bad policy, and some minimal incentive for beneficial ones. Ā What we need (i.e. don’t have now) is competence.
And that will continue to be true when they are completely mechanized.