The post you linked to literally admits to cherry-picking negative examples only (see quote below), it should not be cited as evidence for a ‘fairly poor track record’.
I didn’t want to spend the time doing a thorough accounting exercise, though, so I decided to drop any claim that the examples were representative and just describe them as “cherry-picked” — and add in lots of caveats emphasising that they’re cherry-picked.
It’s pretty ridiculous to expect someone to go through a complete accounting exercise of every statement someone has ever made before expressing an opinion like that, and I’m guessing it’s not a standard you hold for criticism of anyone else. The cited articles provided plenty of examples of yudkowsky being extremely wrong and refusing to acknowledge their mistakes, which matches with my experience of his writings after years of familiarity with it.
My main point is that I have no reason to hold the opinions of Yudkowsky in higher esteem than that of any other succesful pop-science writer like neil degrasse tyson or richard dawkins or whoever. I find it concerning and a little baffling how much influence this one guy has over EA.
If your headline claim is that someone has a “fairly poor track record of correctness”, then I think “using a representative set of examples” to make your case is the bare-minimum necessary for that to be taken seriously, not an isolated demand for rigor.
The post you linked to literally admits to cherry-picking negative examples only (see quote below), it should not be cited as evidence for a ‘fairly poor track record’.
It’s pretty ridiculous to expect someone to go through a complete accounting exercise of every statement someone has ever made before expressing an opinion like that, and I’m guessing it’s not a standard you hold for criticism of anyone else. The cited articles provided plenty of examples of yudkowsky being extremely wrong and refusing to acknowledge their mistakes, which matches with my experience of his writings after years of familiarity with it.
My main point is that I have no reason to hold the opinions of Yudkowsky in higher esteem than that of any other succesful pop-science writer like neil degrasse tyson or richard dawkins or whoever. I find it concerning and a little baffling how much influence this one guy has over EA.
If your headline claim is that someone has a “fairly poor track record of correctness”, then I think “using a representative set of examples” to make your case is the bare-minimum necessary for that to be taken seriously, not an isolated demand for rigor.