Presumably the part where Will says “So, er, it seems that Elon Musk just tweeted about What We Owe The Future. Crazy times!” I agree that this is not something you’d say about someone you knew to the extent that Will knew Elon to the extent shown by the Signal messages, unless you were trying to obscure this fact.
Elon was keynote speaker at EA Global 2015, so would have known Will since then.
Ah, I guess you’re saying that the “Crazy times!” part sounds starstruck and has a vibe of “this just occurred out of the blue”, and it would be weird to sound starstruck and astounded if Elon’s someone you talk to all the time and are good friends with?
I agree that would be a bit weird, though the Will-text-messages I saw didn’t cause me to think Will and Elon are that close, just that they’ve exchanged words and contact info at all. (Maybe I missed some text messages that do suggest a closer relationship?)
I agree that ‘utilitarian-flavoured’ isn’t an inherently bad answer from Ben. My internal reaction at the time, perhaps due to how the night had been marketed, was something like ‘ah he doesn’t want to scare me off if I’m a Kantian or something’, and this probably wasn’t a charitable interpretation.
On the Elon stuff, I agree that talking to Elon is not something that should require reporting. I think the shock for me was that I saw Will’s tweet in August, which as wock agreed implied to me they didn’t know each other, so when I saw the signal conversation I felt misled and started wondering how close they actually were. That said I had no idea Elon was an EAG keynote speaker, which is obviously public knowledge and makes the whole thing a lot less suspicious. I would also remove the word ‘controversial’ if I was to write this again, and that I think Elon’s done harm re: AI, as I agree it’s not relevant to the point I’m trying to make.
EAs and Musk have lots of connections/interactions—e.g., Musk is thanked in the acknowledgments of Bostrom’s 2014 book Superintelligence for providing feedback on the draft of the book. Musk attended FLI’s Jan 2015 Puerto Rico conference. Tegmark apparently argues with Musk about AI a bunch at parties. Various Open Phil staff were on the board of OpenAI at the same time as Musk, before Musk’s departure. Etc.
Presumably the part where Will says “So, er, it seems that Elon Musk just tweeted about What We Owe The Future. Crazy times!” I agree that this is not something you’d say about someone you knew to the extent that Will knew Elon to the extent shown by the Signal messages, unless you were trying to obscure this fact.
Elon was keynote speaker at EA Global 2015, so would have known Will since then.
Ah, I guess you’re saying that the “Crazy times!” part sounds starstruck and has a vibe of “this just occurred out of the blue”, and it would be weird to sound starstruck and astounded if Elon’s someone you talk to all the time and are good friends with?
I agree that would be a bit weird, though the Will-text-messages I saw didn’t cause me to think Will and Elon are that close, just that they’ve exchanged words and contact info at all. (Maybe I missed some text messages that do suggest a closer relationship?)
Upvoted. I think these are all fair points.
I agree that ‘utilitarian-flavoured’ isn’t an inherently bad answer from Ben. My internal reaction at the time, perhaps due to how the night had been marketed, was something like ‘ah he doesn’t want to scare me off if I’m a Kantian or something’, and this probably wasn’t a charitable interpretation.
On the Elon stuff, I agree that talking to Elon is not something that should require reporting. I think the shock for me was that I saw Will’s tweet in August, which as wock agreed implied to me they didn’t know each other, so when I saw the signal conversation I felt misled and started wondering how close they actually were. That said I had no idea Elon was an EAG keynote speaker, which is obviously public knowledge and makes the whole thing a lot less suspicious. I would also remove the word ‘controversial’ if I was to write this again, and that I think Elon’s done harm re: AI, as I agree it’s not relevant to the point I’m trying to make.
EAs and Musk have lots of connections/interactions—e.g., Musk is thanked in the acknowledgments of Bostrom’s 2014 book Superintelligence for providing feedback on the draft of the book. Musk attended FLI’s Jan 2015 Puerto Rico conference. Tegmark apparently argues with Musk about AI a bunch at parties. Various Open Phil staff were on the board of OpenAI at the same time as Musk, before Musk’s departure. Etc.