I am unsure how I feel about takes like this. On one hand, I want EAs and the EA community to be a supportive bunch. So, expressing how you are feeling and receiving productive/helpful/etc. comments is great. The SBF fiasco was mentally strenuous for many, so it is understandable why anything seemingly negative for EA elicits some of the same emotions, especially if you deeply care about this band of people genuinely aiming to do the most good they can.
On the other hand, I think such takes could also contribute to something I would call a “negative memetic spiral.” In this particular case, several speculative projections are expressed together, and despite the qualifying statement at the beginning, I can’t help but feel that several or all of these things will manifest IRL. And when you kind of start believing in such forecasts, you might start saying similar things or expressing similar sentiments. In the worst case, the negative sentiment chain grows rapidly.
It is possible that nothing consequential happens. People’s mood during moments of panic are highly volatile, so five years in, maybe no one even cares about this episode. But in the present, it becomes a thing against the movement/community. (I think a particular individual may have picked up one such comment from the Forum and posted it online to appease to their audience and elevate negative sentiments around EA?).
Taking a step back, gathering more information, and thinking independently, I was able to reason myself out of many of your projections. We are two days in and there is still an acute lack of clarity about what happened. Emmett Shear, the interim CEO of OpenAI, stated that the board’s decision wasn’t over some safety vs. product disagreement. Several safety-aligned people at OpenAI signed the letter demanding that the board should resign, and they seem to be equally disappointed over recent events; this is more evidence that the safety vs. product disagreement likely didn’t lead to Altman’s ousting. There is also somewhat of a shift back to the “center,” at least on Twitter, as there are quite a few reasonable, level-headed takes on what happened and also on EA. I don’t know about the mood in the Bay though, since I don’t live there.
I am unsure if I am expressing my point well, but this is my off-the-cuff take on your off-the-cuff take.
Thanks for your response Akash. I appreciate your thoughts, and I don’t mind that they’re off-the-cuff :)
I agree with some of what you say, and part of what I think is your underlying point , but in some others I’m a bit less clear. I’ve tried to think about two points where I’m not clear, but please do point if I’ve got something egregiously wrong!
1) You seem to be saying that sharing negative thoughts and projections can lead others to do so, and this can then impact other people’s actions in a negative way. It could also be used by anti-EA people against us.[1]
I guess I can kind of see some of this, but I guess I’d view the cure as being worse than the disease sometimes. I think sharing how we’re thinking and feeling is overall a good thing that could help us understand each other more, and I don’t think self-censorship is the right call here. Writing this out I think maybe I disagree with you about whether negative memetic spirals are actually a thing causally instead of descriptively. I think people may be just as likely apriori to have ‘positive memetic spirals’ or ‘regressions to the vibe mean’ or whatever
2) I’m not sure what ‘I was able to reason myself out of many of your projections’ means, apart from ‘hold fire on making projections’. But currently:
We’ve still heard absolutely nothing from the board
Emmett has potentially indicated he will resign if the board doesn’t explain their reasoning or show evidence to back up their decision[2]
This leads me to doubt his earlier claim that the board told him what the firing was about
There still seems to be a concerted effort by some parties to bring Altman back
I don’t see a shift to the centre on Twitter about what happened or about EA. I think the initial flames have cooled a bit, but my intuition is that a shift has happened, even if the reasons for that shift haven’t been fully borne out by the facts
I still think that it’s a very precarious situation that could have some bad downside consequences for EA. Maybe I could have highlighted my uncertainty more though, I wasn’t trying to say exactly what was going to happen.
‘Hold fire on making projections’ is the correct read, and I agree with everything else you mention in point 2.
About point 1 — I think sharing negative thoughts is absolutely a-ok and important. I take issue with airing bold projections when basic facts of the matter aren’t even clear. I thought you were stating something akin to “xyz are going to happen,” but re-reading your initial post, I believe I misjudged.
I am unsure how I feel about takes like this. On one hand, I want EAs and the EA community to be a supportive bunch. So, expressing how you are feeling and receiving productive/helpful/etc. comments is great. The SBF fiasco was mentally strenuous for many, so it is understandable why anything seemingly negative for EA elicits some of the same emotions, especially if you deeply care about this band of people genuinely aiming to do the most good they can.
On the other hand, I think such takes could also contribute to something I would call a “negative memetic spiral.” In this particular case, several speculative projections are expressed together, and despite the qualifying statement at the beginning, I can’t help but feel that several or all of these things will manifest IRL. And when you kind of start believing in such forecasts, you might start saying similar things or expressing similar sentiments. In the worst case, the negative sentiment chain grows rapidly.
It is possible that nothing consequential happens. People’s mood during moments of panic are highly volatile, so five years in, maybe no one even cares about this episode. But in the present, it becomes a thing against the movement/community. (I think a particular individual may have picked up one such comment from the Forum and posted it online to appease to their audience and elevate negative sentiments around EA?).
Taking a step back, gathering more information, and thinking independently, I was able to reason myself out of many of your projections. We are two days in and there is still an acute lack of clarity about what happened. Emmett Shear, the interim CEO of OpenAI, stated that the board’s decision wasn’t over some safety vs. product disagreement. Several safety-aligned people at OpenAI signed the letter demanding that the board should resign, and they seem to be equally disappointed over recent events; this is more evidence that the safety vs. product disagreement likely didn’t lead to Altman’s ousting. There is also somewhat of a shift back to the “center,” at least on Twitter, as there are quite a few reasonable, level-headed takes on what happened and also on EA. I don’t know about the mood in the Bay though, since I don’t live there.
I am unsure if I am expressing my point well, but this is my off-the-cuff take on your off-the-cuff take.
Thanks for your response Akash. I appreciate your thoughts, and I don’t mind that they’re off-the-cuff :)
I agree with some of what you say, and part of what I think is your underlying point , but in some others I’m a bit less clear. I’ve tried to think about two points where I’m not clear, but please do point if I’ve got something egregiously wrong!
1) You seem to be saying that sharing negative thoughts and projections can lead others to do so, and this can then impact other people’s actions in a negative way. It could also be used by anti-EA people against us.[1]
I guess I can kind of see some of this, but I guess I’d view the cure as being worse than the disease sometimes. I think sharing how we’re thinking and feeling is overall a good thing that could help us understand each other more, and I don’t think self-censorship is the right call here. Writing this out I think maybe I disagree with you about whether negative memetic spirals are actually a thing causally instead of descriptively. I think people may be just as likely apriori to have ‘positive memetic spirals’ or ‘regressions to the vibe mean’ or whatever
2) I’m not sure what ‘I was able to reason myself out of many of your projections’ means, apart from ‘hold fire on making projections’. But currently:
We’ve still heard absolutely nothing from the board
Emmett has potentially indicated he will resign if the board doesn’t explain their reasoning or show evidence to back up their decision[2]
This leads me to doubt his earlier claim that the board told him what the firing was about
There still seems to be a concerted effort by some parties to bring Altman back
I don’t see a shift to the centre on Twitter about what happened or about EA. I think the initial flames have cooled a bit, but my intuition is that a shift has happened, even if the reasons for that shift haven’t been fully borne out by the facts
I still think that it’s a very precarious situation that could have some bad downside consequences for EA. Maybe I could have highlighted my uncertainty more though, I wasn’t trying to say exactly what was going to happen.
I think I know the tweet you’re obliquely referring to, but maybe I’m wrong
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-21/altman-openai-board-open-talks-to-negotiate-his-possible-return?fromMostRead=true#xj4y7vzkg
‘Hold fire on making projections’ is the correct read, and I agree with everything else you mention in point 2.
About point 1 — I think sharing negative thoughts is absolutely a-ok and important. I take issue with airing bold projections when basic facts of the matter aren’t even clear. I thought you were stating something akin to “xyz are going to happen,” but re-reading your initial post, I believe I misjudged.