{"id":557,"date":"2013-06-12T21:25:54","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T02:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/?p=557"},"modified":"2013-06-12T21:25:54","modified_gmt":"2013-06-13T02:25:54","slug":"manzi-on-policy-expertise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/manzi-on-policy-expertise\/","title":{"rendered":"Manzi on Policy Expertise"},"content":{"rendered":"

An aeronautical engineer can predict reliably that \u201cIf you design a wing like this, then this plane will be airworthy, but if you design it like that, then it will never get in the air.\u201d If you were to build a bunch of airplanes according to each set of specifications, you would discover that he or she is almost always right. This is actual expertise... <\/p>\n

Our so-called experts in public policy talk a good game, but in the end are no experts at all. They build castles of words, and call it knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jim Manzi<\/a><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An aeronautical engineer can predict reliably that \u201cIf you design a wing like this, then this plane will be airworthy, but if you design it like that, then it will never get in the air.\u201d If you were to build … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-quotes","post_format-post-format-aside","wpautop"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3sddF-8Z","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1188,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/aies-2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":0},"title":"AIES 2018","author":"jsylvest","date":"9 February 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week I attended the first annual conference on AI, Ethics & Society where I presented some work on a Decision Tree\/Random Forest algorithm that makes decisions that are less biased or discriminatory. ((In the colloquial rather than technical sense)) You can read all the juicy details in our paper.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding"","block_context":{"text":"CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/cs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":62,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/computational-cartography-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":1},"title":"Computational Cartography (Part 2)","author":"jsylvest","date":"20 February 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In the previous post I talked a bit about how one might build a system which would algorithmically divide the US into 50 states of approximately equal populations. I've messed around with the problem a bit and developed a very rough approximation. Actually, I don't even feel comfortable calling this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding"","block_context":{"text":"CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/cs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"auto sized states - after","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/auto-sized-states-after-1024x768.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/auto-sized-states-after-1024x768.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/auto-sized-states-after-1024x768.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/auto-sized-states-after-1024x768.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1002,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/self-diagnosis-and-government-contracting\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":2},"title":"Self-Diagnosis and Government Contracting","author":"jsylvest","date":"18 September 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this week Hadley Wickham, Chief Scientist at RStudio, gave a little talk at Booz Allen. He started out in med school, and one of the things that stuck out from his talk was a comparison between being a consulting statistician and taking a medical history. He tells a similar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Business \/ Economics"","block_context":{"text":"Business \/ Economics","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/business-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1204,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/why-we-worry-about-the-ethics-of-machine-intelligence\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":3},"title":"Why we worry about the Ethics of Machine Intelligence","author":"jsylvest","date":"23 March 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This essay was co-authored by myself and\u00a0Steve Mills. We worry about the ethics of Machine Intelligence (MI) and we fear our community is completely unprepared for the power we now wield. Let us tell you why. To be clear, we\u2019re big believers in the far-reaching good MI can do. Every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding"","block_context":{"text":"CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/cs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1124,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/national-ai-strategy\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":4},"title":"National AI Strategy","author":"jsylvest","date":"9 October 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Some of my co-workers published a sponsored piece in the Atlantic calling for a national AI strategy,\u00a0which was tied in to\u00a0some discussions at the\u00a0Washington Ideas event. I'm 100% on board with the US having a strategy, but I want to offer one caveat: \"comprehensive national strategies\" are susceptible to becoming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Business \/ Economics"","block_context":{"text":"Business \/ Economics","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/business-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":846,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/writing-software-is-not-a-political-process\/","url_meta":{"origin":557,"position":5},"title":"Writing software is not a political process","author":"jsylvest","date":"13 December 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's put aside how we personally feel about ObamaCare for a moment. Ignore for the time being any considerations of the politics, economics, efficiency, justice, equity, etc. of the law. ((After all, you, dear readers, are strangers to me, and I find it slightly uncivilized to discuss politics, religion or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Business \/ Economics"","block_context":{"text":"Business \/ Economics","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/business-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Compilers are even more stubborn than the tide.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/canutewaves.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}