Everything you say is correct I think, but I think in more normal circles, pointing out the inconsistency between someone’s wedding page and their corporate PR bullshit would seem a bit weird and obsessive and mean. I don’t find it so, but I think ordinary people would get a bad vibe from it.
That’s interesting I think I might move in different circles. Most people I know would not really understand the concept of there being a PR world where your present different things from your personal life
Perhaps you move in more corporate or higher flying circles where this kind of disconnect is normal and where its fine to have a public/private communication disconnect which is considered rude to challenge? Interesting!
fwiw I think in any circle I’ve been a part of critiquing someone publicly based on their wedding website would be considered weird/a low blow. (Including corporate circles.) [1]
I think there is a level of influence at which everything becomes fair game, e.g. Donald Trump can’t really expect a public/private communication disconnect. I don’t think that’s true of Daniela, although I concede that her influence over the light cone might not actually be that much lower than Trump’s.
Wow again I just haven’t moved in circles where this would even be considered. Only the most elite 0.1 percent of people can even have a meaningful “public private disconnect” as you have to have quite a prominent public profile for that to even be an issue. Although we all have a “public profile” in theory, very few people are famous/powerful enough for it to count.
I don’t think I believe in a public/private disconnect but I’ll think about it some more. I believe in integrity and honesty in most situations, especially when your are publicly disparaging a movement. If you have chosen to lie and smear a movement with”My impression is that it’s a bit of an outdated term” then I think this makes what you say a bit more fair game than for other statements where you aren’t low-key attacking a group of well meaning people.
Only the most elite 0.1 percent of people can even have a meaningful “public private disconnect” as you have to have quite a prominent public profile for that to even be an issue.
Hmm yeah, that’s kinda my point? Like complaining about your annoying coworker anonymously online is fine, but making a public blog post like “my coworker Jane Doe sucks for these reasons” would be weird, people get fired for stuff like that. And referencing their wedding website would be even more extreme.
(Of course, most people’s coworkers aren’t trying to reshape the lightcone without public consent so idk, maybe different standards should apply here. I can tell you that a non-trivial number of people I’ve wanted to hire for leadership positions in EA have declined for reasons like “I don’t want people critiquing my personal life on the EA Forum” though.)
No one is critiquing Daniela’s personal life though, they’re critiquing something about her public life (ie her voluntary public statements to journalists) for contradicting what she’s said in her personal life. Compare this with a common reason people get cancelled where the critique is that there’s something bad in their personal life, and people are disappointed that the personal life doesn’t reflect the public persona- in this case it’s the other way around.
most people’s coworkers aren’t trying to reshape the lightcone without public consent so idk, maybe different standards should apply here
Exactly. Daniela and the senior leadership at one of the frontier AI labs are not the same as someone’s random office colleague. There’s a clear public interest angle here in terms of understanding the political and social affiliations of powerful and influential people—which is simply absent in the case you describe.
That’s interesting and I’m sad to hear about people declining jobs due those reasons. On the other hand though some leadership jobs might not be the right job fit if they’re not up for that kind of critique. I would imagine though there are a bunch of ways to avoid the “EA limelight” for many positions though, of course not public facing ones.
Slight quibble though I would consider “Jane Doe sucks for these reasons” an order of magnitude more objectionable than quoting a wedding website to make a point. Maybe wedding website are sacrosanct in a way in missing tho...
the other hand though some leadership jobs might not be the right job fit if they’re not up for that kind of critique
Yeah, this used to be my take but a few iterations of trying to hire for jobs which exclude shy awkward nerds from consideration when the EA candidate pool consists almost entirely of shy awkward nerds has made the cost of this approach quite salient to me.
Agree with Ben that this makes it harder to find folks for leadership positions.
In addition to excluding shy awkward nerds, you’re also actively selecting for a bunch of personality traits, not all of which are unalloyed positives.
By analogy, I think there’s a very strong argument that very high levels of scrutiny are fair game for politicians but I’m not particularly thrilled with what that does to our candidate pool.
(I don’t know of a great way to resolve this tension.)
There’s already been much critique of your argument here, but I will just say that by the “level of influence” metric, Daniela shoots it out of the park compared to Donald Trump. I think it is entirely uncontroversial and perhaps an understatement to claim the world as a whole and EA in particular has a right to know & discuss pretty much every fact about the personal, professional, social, and philosophical lives of the group of people who, by their own admission, are literally creating God. And are likely to be elevated to a permanent place of power & control over the universe for all of eternity.
Such a position should not be a pleasurable job with no repercussions on the level of privacy or degree of public scrutiny on your personal life. If you are among this group, and this level of scrutiny disturbs you, perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to “reshape the lightcone without public consent” or knowledge.
I agree with this being weird / a low blow in general, but not in this particular case. The crux with your footnote may be that I see this as more than a continuum.
I think someone’s interest in private communications becomes significantly weaker as they assume a position of great power over others, conditioned on the subject matter of the communication being a matter of meaningful public interest. Here, I think an AI executive’s perspective on EA is a matter of significant public interest.
Second, I do not find a wedding website to be a particularly private form of communication compared to (e.g.) a private conversation with a romantic partner. Audience in the hundreds, no strong confidentiality commitment, no precautions to prevent public access.
The more power the individual has over others, the wider the scope of topics that are of legitimate public interest for the others to bring up and the narrower the scope of communications that citing would be a weird / low. So what applies to major corporate CEOs with significant influence over the future would not generally apply to most people.
Compare this to paparazzi, who hound celebrities (who do not possess CEO-level power) for material that is not of legitimate public interest, and often under circumstances in which society recognizes particularly strong privacy rights.
I’m reminded of the NBA basketball-team owner who made some racist basketball-related comments to his affair partner, who leaked them. My recollection is that people threw shade on the affair partner (who arguably betrayed his confidences), but few people complained about showering hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax consequences on the owner by forcing the sale of his team against his will. Unlike comments to a medium-size audience on a website, the owner’s comments were particularly private (to an intimate figure, 1:1, protected from non-consensual recording by criminal law).
Everything you say is correct I think, but I think in more normal circles, pointing out the inconsistency between someone’s wedding page and their corporate PR bullshit would seem a bit weird and obsessive and mean. I don’t find it so, but I think ordinary people would get a bad vibe from it.
That’s interesting I think I might move in different circles. Most people I know would not really understand the concept of there being a PR world where your present different things from your personal life
Perhaps you move in more corporate or higher flying circles where this kind of disconnect is normal and where its fine to have a public/private communication disconnect which is considered rude to challenge? Interesting!
fwiw I think in any circle I’ve been a part of critiquing someone publicly based on their wedding website would be considered weird/a low blow. (Including corporate circles.) [1]
I think there is a level of influence at which everything becomes fair game, e.g. Donald Trump can’t really expect a public/private communication disconnect. I don’t think that’s true of Daniela, although I concede that her influence over the light cone might not actually be that much lower than Trump’s.
Wow again I just haven’t moved in circles where this would even be considered. Only the most elite 0.1 percent of people can even have a meaningful “public private disconnect” as you have to have quite a prominent public profile for that to even be an issue. Although we all have a “public profile” in theory, very few people are famous/powerful enough for it to count.
I don’t think I believe in a public/private disconnect but I’ll think about it some more. I believe in integrity and honesty in most situations, especially when your are publicly disparaging a movement. If you have chosen to lie and smear a movement with”My impression is that it’s a bit of an outdated term” then I think this makes what you say a bit more fair game than for other statements where you aren’t low-key attacking a group of well meaning people.
Hmm yeah, that’s kinda my point? Like complaining about your annoying coworker anonymously online is fine, but making a public blog post like “my coworker Jane Doe sucks for these reasons” would be weird, people get fired for stuff like that. And referencing their wedding website would be even more extreme.
(Of course, most people’s coworkers aren’t trying to reshape the lightcone without public consent so idk, maybe different standards should apply here. I can tell you that a non-trivial number of people I’ve wanted to hire for leadership positions in EA have declined for reasons like “I don’t want people critiquing my personal life on the EA Forum” though.)
No one is critiquing Daniela’s personal life though, they’re critiquing something about her public life (ie her voluntary public statements to journalists) for contradicting what she’s said in her personal life. Compare this with a common reason people get cancelled where the critique is that there’s something bad in their personal life, and people are disappointed that the personal life doesn’t reflect the public persona- in this case it’s the other way around.
Exactly. Daniela and the senior leadership at one of the frontier AI labs are not the same as someone’s random office colleague. There’s a clear public interest angle here in terms of understanding the political and social affiliations of powerful and influential people—which is simply absent in the case you describe.
That’s interesting and I’m sad to hear about people declining jobs due those reasons. On the other hand though some leadership jobs might not be the right job fit if they’re not up for that kind of critique. I would imagine though there are a bunch of ways to avoid the “EA limelight” for many positions though, of course not public facing ones.
Slight quibble though I would consider “Jane Doe sucks for these reasons” an order of magnitude more objectionable than quoting a wedding website to make a point. Maybe wedding website are sacrosanct in a way in missing tho...
Yeah, this used to be my take but a few iterations of trying to hire for jobs which exclude shy awkward nerds from consideration when the EA candidate pool consists almost entirely of shy awkward nerds has made the cost of this approach quite salient to me.
There are trade-offs to everything 🤷♂️
Agree with Ben that this makes it harder to find folks for leadership positions.
In addition to excluding shy awkward nerds, you’re also actively selecting for a bunch of personality traits, not all of which are unalloyed positives.
By analogy, I think there’s a very strong argument that very high levels of scrutiny are fair game for politicians but I’m not particularly thrilled with what that does to our candidate pool.
(I don’t know of a great way to resolve this tension.)
100 percent man
There’s already been much critique of your argument here, but I will just say that by the “level of influence” metric, Daniela shoots it out of the park compared to Donald Trump. I think it is entirely uncontroversial and perhaps an understatement to claim the world as a whole and EA in particular has a right to know & discuss pretty much every fact about the personal, professional, social, and philosophical lives of the group of people who, by their own admission, are literally creating God. And are likely to be elevated to a permanent place of power & control over the universe for all of eternity.
Such a position should not be a pleasurable job with no repercussions on the level of privacy or degree of public scrutiny on your personal life. If you are among this group, and this level of scrutiny disturbs you, perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to “reshape the lightcone without public consent” or knowledge.
I agree with this being weird / a low blow in general, but not in this particular case. The crux with your footnote may be that I see this as more than a continuum.
I think someone’s interest in private communications becomes significantly weaker as they assume a position of great power over others, conditioned on the subject matter of the communication being a matter of meaningful public interest. Here, I think an AI executive’s perspective on EA is a matter of significant public interest.
Second, I do not find a wedding website to be a particularly private form of communication compared to (e.g.) a private conversation with a romantic partner. Audience in the hundreds, no strong confidentiality commitment, no precautions to prevent public access.
The more power the individual has over others, the wider the scope of topics that are of legitimate public interest for the others to bring up and the narrower the scope of communications that citing would be a weird / low. So what applies to major corporate CEOs with significant influence over the future would not generally apply to most people.
Compare this to paparazzi, who hound celebrities (who do not possess CEO-level power) for material that is not of legitimate public interest, and often under circumstances in which society recognizes particularly strong privacy rights.
I’m reminded of the NBA basketball-team owner who made some racist basketball-related comments to his affair partner, who leaked them. My recollection is that people threw shade on the affair partner (who arguably betrayed his confidences), but few people complained about showering hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax consequences on the owner by forcing the sale of his team against his will. Unlike comments to a medium-size audience on a website, the owner’s comments were particularly private (to an intimate figure, 1:1, protected from non-consensual recording by criminal law).
No, I don’t move in corporate circles.
Not when the issue is “knowledge of and identification with something by name”