Beliefs and Irrationality.

[swestrup]

Elizier Yudkowsky has written an enlightening PDF on human biases in reasoning about the future. One of the conclusions I draw from the essay is that policy writers draw upon fiction they have been exposed to as if it consisted of actual events. Thus, when writing legislation that deals with brain implants, for example, those who have been exposed to Star Trek consider the Borg to be a possible outcome far more likely than abstract beneficial ones they have not seen portrayed. Thus this would seem to indicate that, we need to get far more benevolent technological scenarios on TV and in the Movies. There are plenty in Science Fiction literature but the evidence is strong that policy writers never read SF.