steelman

plural steelmen · alternative steel-man

1. A male steelworker.
2. A stronger version of an argument that one is about to critically analyze.

   a "steel man" is an improvement of someone's position or argument that is harder to defeat than their originally stated position or argument.

   2011 October 24, Luke Muehlhauser, “Better Disagreement”, in LessWrong, archived from the original on 15 May 2021

   1 more example

   I want to make that strawman into a steelman, but I eliminated "the pursuit of happiness" from my to-do list so many years ago that I don't even know where I'd begin.

   2012 July 7, Guy Srinivasan, “Wireheading Steelman”, in lw-seattle (Usenet)

   Antonyms: strawman

present singular third person steelmans · participle present steelmanning · participle past steelmanned · past steelmanned · alternative steel-man

1. To repair flaws in an argument before analyzing it critically; to refute or to weaken the force of a stronger version of an argument than what was actually given.

   Perhaps the argument should be steelmanned in that we should generally avoid using algorithms which are so complex that they aren't glass boxes.

   2015 June 18, rndn, “Going Deeper into Neural Networks”, in Hacker News forums

   3 more examples

   I don't agree with the argument, because of 4. If I were to steelman it, which I may try but after work or maybe during lunch, I would first try to make it impervious to this assault:

   2012 July 7, Guy Srinivasan, “Wireheading Steelman”, in lw-seattle (Usenet)

   It is possible that while preparing for the talk I will manage to convince myself that the problem is in fact resolved or dissolved. In that case I will treat you to my best steelmanning of the problem, and its resolution.

   2015 February 11, Daniel Armak, “Re: volunteers for feb 24.”, in LessWrong Tel Aviv (Usenet)

   And America would benefit if our culture of argument elevated the opposite approach, steel-manning, “the art of addressing the best form of the other person’s argument, even if it’s not the one they presented.” […] Coming full circle to our NPR host’s project, Messinger argues that “steelmanning makes you a better person.

   2017 June 26, Conor Friedersdorf, “The Highest Form of Disagreement”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 30 Jun 2017

   Antonyms: straw man

plural Steelmans

1. A surname.