Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…Yeah. Okay. But Claude has to speak, but without being overbearing. But then there’s a line when you’re discussing whether the earth is flat or something like that. Actually, I remember a long time ago was speaking to a few high profile folks and they were so dismissive of the idea that the earth is flat, so arrogant about it. There’s a lot of people that believe the earth is flat. I don’t know if that movement is there anymore, that was a meme for a while, but they really believed it. And okay, so I think it’s really disrespectful to completely mock them. I think you have to understand where they’re coming from. I think probably where they’re coming from is the general skepticism of institutions which is grounded in a, there’s a deep philosophy there which you could understand, you can even agree with in parts. And then from there you can use it as an opportunity to talk about physics without mocking them, without someone, but it’s just like, okay, what would the world look like? What would the physics of the world with the flat earth look like? There’s a few cool videos on this. And then is it possible the physics is different? And what kind of experience would we do? And just without disrespect, without dismissiveness, have that conversation. Anyway, that to me is a useful thought experiment of how does Claude talk to a flat earth believer and still teach them something, still grow, help them grow, that kind of stuff. That’s challenging. And kind of walking that line between convincing someone and just trying to talk at them versus drawing out their views, listening and then offering counter considerations, and it’s hard. I think it’s actually a hard line where it’s like where are you trying to convince someone versus just offering them considerations and things for them to think about so that you’re not actually influencing them, you’re just letting them reach wherever they reach. And that’s a line that is difficult, but that’s the kind of thing that language models have to try and do.…

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