Eliezer doth protest too much, methinks

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.  We’ve replaced kings — human beings — with artificial rule-based decision procedures based on vote-counting and other random esoterica.  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.  What we need (i.e. don’t have now) is competence.

And that will continue to be true when they are completely mechanized.