From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Oct 09 2001 - 20:28:16 MDT
"Aikin, Robert" wrote:
>
> One additional thought: Almost any symbol employed by SIAI *can* be
> interpreted as religious. The concepts already mentioned could easily be
> confused as such, e.g., a tree is a serious symbol for Kabbalists (Jewish
> and Christian mysticism); the seedling can be identified as an acorn,
> especially sacred to Druids; a handshake with that of secret
> societies/fraternities like Freemasonry; an eye for a number of Illumination
> cults... Personally, I think that any graphic design should be used without
> a concern for how it might be misinterpreted. AI is a profound probability
> beyond the superstitions of past ages.
In the words of Mr. Boffo:
http://www.ucomics.com/misterboffo/viewmb.cfm?uc_full_date=20010625
Any symbol can be interpreted as religious. However, using an eye in a
pyramid surrounded by Hebrew lettering as your symbol is just begging for
trouble.
Picking a symbol that has no immediate mystical connotations to the
average browsing rationalist is a different task than picking a symbol
which *cannot* be mystically interpreted. We might put three graphics on
the back of a T-Shirt, but if so, we'd probably put them in a straight
line rather than a triangle.
And SIAI's current decision is that we want to stay out of trouble, and
that this is worth some visual inconvenience if required.
> Any possible SIAI mark could have a
> textual disclaimer or explanation of the symbol for the public.
A symbol that requires explanation to avert a bad reaction is not
acceptable - we'd take something totally abstract first.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://intelligence.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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