John Dean was Wrong about Watergate

New lecture:

Geoffrey Hinton - Will Digital Intelligence Replace Biological Intelligence?

In this profound keynote, Vector co-founder Geoffrey Hinton explores the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence and its potential to surpass human intelligence. Drawing from decades of expertise, Hinton shares his growing concerns about AI's existential risks while examining fundamental questions about consciousness, understanding, and the nature of intelligence itself.

He respond to the AI criticism that LLMs hallucinate, by saying that human memory is just as bad. He gives as an example an analysis of John Dean's Watergate testimony:

John Dean, the former counsel to President Richard Nixon, testified to the Senate Watergate Investigating Committee about conversations that later turned out to have been tape recorded. Comparison of his testimony with the actual transcripts shows systematic distortion at one level of analysis combined with basic accuracy at another. Many of the distortions reflected Dean's own self-image; he tended to recall his role as more central than it really was. Moreover, his memory for even the “gist” of conversations was quite poor except where that gist had been rehearsed in advance or frequently repeated.

Wow. John Dean was the White House lawyer, and he never should have been allowed to testify against Pres. Nixon. But he did, and recited events in extraordinary detail. I did not know that his recollection was mostly wrong.

I had read that the Woodward-Bernstein accounts were mostly wrong, to the extent that facts could be checked.

Evolution and Immigration Denial

Jonatan Pallesen writes:

Many people deny that mass immigration over time will fundamentally change countries.

This is a similar kind of mistake as evolution denial.

One is abowritesut e: volution at the level of a species and one is about evolution at the level of a country.

• Evolution deniers

Evolution deniers accept that "microevolution" happens. They also agree that different species exist. They just don't think that a large number of small mutations over time can lead to a new species.

• Mass immigration impact deniers:

Similarly, mass immigration impact deniers accept that micro changes happen. They acknowledge that individual immigrants can have different cultures and views than the host population on average. They also agree that countries with large differences between them exist. They just don't believe that a large number of immigrants over time can lead to a fundamentally changed country.

Both groups of deniers often demand to be shown direct evidence of transformation in progress. For example, "Show me the monkey turning into a human" or "Show me that California has turned into Mexico." A snapshot may not clearly reveal an ongoing process, but that doesn't mean the process isn't taking place.

In both cases, the evolution has taken place in the past. For example, with the Yamnaya expansion, countries evolved into different societies and cultures. However, since this happened long ago, there is limited evidence illustrating these changes. Similarly, our shared ancestor with chimpanzees evolved into different species, including humans. But since this also occurred long ago, the evidence is limited, allowing evolution deniers to raise questions.

In general, people find it difficult to intuitively understand the impact of many small changes over time. This difficulty, combined with ideological beliefs that lead them to want to deny it, is why many otherwise sensible people deny that evolution takes place.

He has a good point. People can see the small changes, and have trouble seeing the big changes.

A long time ago, people did not care about invasive species, because the immediate effect was small. Or people did not understand the different ecology of different species.

California, Canada, London, Paris, etc. have been transformed into something different. It should be plain for anyone to see.