Might be the conspiratorial part of my brain coming through, but I’m half convinced it’s not just a stupid person, but an AI that completely missed the point.
I almost wonder if there shouldn’t be an extension or corollary of Hanlon’s Razor somewhere to account for AI.
“Never attribute to malice that which can be better explained by stupidity, but never attribute to stupidity that which can be better explained by malicious chatbots.”
Hanlon’s Razor is an old adage that boils down to: when you think someone is intentionally trying to be evil and ruin something, take a step back and ask whether it’s likelier they’re trying to be intentionally malicious, or if they’re just stupid/incompetent.
For example, you go to a restaurant and tell the waiter that you can’t have dairy, so you order a pasta dish without cheese. They bring it out to you, but look, there’s cheese. You can assume either that the waiter or the staff in the kitchen absolutely hate you and intentionally gave you cheese just to spite you…or that they just screwed up and forgot. The latter is probably likelier.
I was half-joking about potentially updating this idea to include an additional stipulation about AI bots online, which are good at looking like stupid people but actually are often malicious. Bots are used to sway political opinions. You have cases where they are trying to pass themselves off as real people to drown out legitimate discourse with a simulation of it, and cases like Musk’s Grok AI where it’s programmed to ignore truth and instead answer questions in ways that further his agenda or inflate his ego.
So sometimes when you see political posts that just defy all logic, or are ignoring a hard truth that is staring them in the face, you’re inclined to ask “How can this person sincerely believe what they’re saying right now?” And often the answer will be that they don’t, because they’re not a person, they’re a bot just regurgitating propagandic talking points.
Out of curiosity, I just sent the screenshot of post (without comment) to ChatGPT and Gemini to asked for a comment and they got the point, maybe they are using smaller models that are cheaper to run.
I almost wonder if there shouldn’t be an extension or corollary of Hanlon’s Razor somewhere to account for AI.
I feel like Hanlon’s Razor is a disease more than it is useful to anyone in any situation.
So frequently do normal people refuse to acknowledge that others can simply be malicious, that this rule only serves to aid people in giving the benefit of the doubt to people who act in ways to abuse it.
Politicians, shitty bosses, unscrupulous contractors, etc etc. All of these people hurt others by abusing their presumptions of innocence.
It’s not perfect, but the basic idea is that assuming malice as default in every scenario will cause one to spiral into paranoia.
It’s not saying “people are never malicious and always just stupid” but just asking someone to take a step back from the situation and ask which is likelier in context.
It’s not perfect, but the basic idea is that assuming malice as default in every scenario will cause one to spiral into paranoia.
But thats not what the phrase actuyally advocates for. It feels almost like a bit of theological apologia to save a phrase that really does far more harm than good in my estimation.
Might be the conspiratorial part of my brain coming through, but I’m half convinced it’s not just a stupid person, but an AI that completely missed the point.
I almost wonder if there shouldn’t be an extension or corollary of Hanlon’s Razor somewhere to account for AI.
“Never attribute to malice that which can be better explained by stupidity, but never attribute to stupidity that which can be better explained by malicious chatbots.”
Mind explaining? I dont get it (genuinly)
Hanlon’s Razor is an old adage that boils down to: when you think someone is intentionally trying to be evil and ruin something, take a step back and ask whether it’s likelier they’re trying to be intentionally malicious, or if they’re just stupid/incompetent.
For example, you go to a restaurant and tell the waiter that you can’t have dairy, so you order a pasta dish without cheese. They bring it out to you, but look, there’s cheese. You can assume either that the waiter or the staff in the kitchen absolutely hate you and intentionally gave you cheese just to spite you…or that they just screwed up and forgot. The latter is probably likelier.
I was half-joking about potentially updating this idea to include an additional stipulation about AI bots online, which are good at looking like stupid people but actually are often malicious. Bots are used to sway political opinions. You have cases where they are trying to pass themselves off as real people to drown out legitimate discourse with a simulation of it, and cases like Musk’s Grok AI where it’s programmed to ignore truth and instead answer questions in ways that further his agenda or inflate his ego.
So sometimes when you see political posts that just defy all logic, or are ignoring a hard truth that is staring them in the face, you’re inclined to ask “How can this person sincerely believe what they’re saying right now?” And often the answer will be that they don’t, because they’re not a person, they’re a bot just regurgitating propagandic talking points.
Look at their username. Being obtuse to obvious shit like that is a common right-wing play.
Out of curiosity, I just sent the screenshot of post (without comment) to ChatGPT and Gemini to asked for a comment and they got the point, maybe they are using smaller models that are cheaper to run.
The post is also from 2022, and the tech has changed a bit since then.
Oh I missed that, then yeah could be the case
I feel like Hanlon’s Razor is a disease more than it is useful to anyone in any situation.
So frequently do normal people refuse to acknowledge that others can simply be malicious, that this rule only serves to aid people in giving the benefit of the doubt to people who act in ways to abuse it.
Politicians, shitty bosses, unscrupulous contractors, etc etc. All of these people hurt others by abusing their presumptions of innocence.
It’s not perfect, but the basic idea is that assuming malice as default in every scenario will cause one to spiral into paranoia.
It’s not saying “people are never malicious and always just stupid” but just asking someone to take a step back from the situation and ask which is likelier in context.
But thats not what the phrase actuyally advocates for. It feels almost like a bit of theological apologia to save a phrase that really does far more harm than good in my estimation.