Maybe because P(doom) ranges from 10% to 99% excludes many people that state a lower P(doom) or refuse to state a number.
Maybe because Will MacAskill sits at 10ā20%, calling himself āoptimistic todayā ā but notes this is among the lowest estimates in serious circles implies people that state a lower number are not serious.
Those were my reasons to think of downvoting. In the end I didnāt do it because at the time the post was already in the negatives.
There is a huge selection bias coming into play here, where people that appear in AI safety podcasts or use the expression P(doom) have self-selected for higher numbers than people that donāt, and this is not addressed in the post.
Youāre making good points. The selection bias one especially. The corpus is AI safety-focused podcasts (AXRP, 80,000 Hours, The Inside View, etc.), so it skews toward people who already take alignment seriously. LeCun, Ng, and others who think the framing is wrong donāt typically appear on those shows, and when they do theyāre pushing back on the premise rather than giving a number.
The ā10 to 99%ā framing was honest about whatās in this corpus but youāre right that it implies a complete range. The āMacAskill among the lowest in serious circlesā line was sloppy. That phrasing came from his own framing on 80k Hours but it carries an implication I didnāt intend.
If anyone has pointers to AI safety podcast episodes with people in the under-5% range or rejecting the framing entirely, Iād appreciate it. Thatās a real gap in coverage I should address.
Thanks for asking, honestly not sure why the early downvotes. Guess the framing read too promotional first time around. Karmaās recovered since. Worth mentioning the mobile experience was broken back then; thatās fixed now if it matters.
Why the downvotes?
Maybe because P(doom) ranges from 10% to 99% excludes many people that state a lower P(doom) or refuse to state a number.
Maybe because Will MacAskill sits at 10ā20%, calling himself āoptimistic todayā ā but notes this is among the lowest estimates in serious circles implies people that state a lower number are not serious.
Those were my reasons to think of downvoting. In the end I didnāt do it because at the time the post was already in the negatives.
There is a huge selection bias coming into play here, where people that appear in AI safety podcasts or use the expression P(doom) have self-selected for higher numbers than people that donāt, and this is not addressed in the post.
Okāthatās fair. Thereās also the issue that doom means very different things to different people.
Youāre making good points. The selection bias one especially.
The corpus is AI safety-focused podcasts (AXRP, 80,000 Hours,
The Inside View, etc.), so it skews toward people who already
take alignment seriously. LeCun, Ng, and others who think the
framing is wrong donāt typically appear on those shows, and
when they do theyāre pushing back on the premise rather than
giving a number.
The ā10 to 99%ā framing was honest about whatās in this corpus
but youāre right that it implies a complete range. The āMacAskill
among the lowest in serious circlesā line was sloppy. That
phrasing came from his own framing on 80k Hours but it carries
an implication I didnāt intend.
If anyone has pointers to AI safety podcast episodes with people
in the under-5% range or rejecting the framing entirely, Iād
appreciate it. Thatās a real gap in coverage I should address.
Thanks for asking, honestly not sure why the early downvotes.
Guess the framing read too promotional first time around. Karmaās
recovered since. Worth mentioning the mobile experience was broken
back then; thatās fixed now if it matters.