A person in a professional culture may want to not disclose some sensitive opinions of theirs. This could be a political leaning towards left or right. It could be revealling motivations or vulnerabilities—for instance if someone dicloses they’re actually more interested in things other than what they claimed in their career. It could even be something extreme like discussion over AI alignment or infohazards, which a person cannot speak publicly about because they’re in a position of authority on those issues.
There may also occassionally be reasons for someone to be deceptive for good reason in their professional life. And project more confidence than is epistemically honest.
All of this matters more to people who have more influence and authority, which is exactly who the EA forum may benefit from more interaction with. They currently would choose to limit their interaction with such forums to be on the safe side. Privacy features could change this.
Yeah, this isn’t really true.
The most relevant situation might be for a small group of people who join and briefly make “magisterial” comments with great depth and perspective. This is some of the most valuable and unique engagement the forum gets.
These people giving magisterial perspective are usually senior and are basically trained to communicate and present themselves. In some sense, it is their duty and wish to use their persona in this way.
So things are kind of exactly the opposite of the perspective in this post.
For established EAs in a position of authority who want to say something about “AI alignment or infohazards”, there are several channels that they can act or dissent, and I don’t think the EA forum is a large part of that. It’s also trivial to create a new forum account, and a much more difficult task to really try to conceal their identity.
Yeah, this isn’t really true.
The most relevant situation might be for a small group of people who join and briefly make “magisterial” comments with great depth and perspective. This is some of the most valuable and unique engagement the forum gets.
These people giving magisterial perspective are usually senior and are basically trained to communicate and present themselves. In some sense, it is their duty and wish to use their persona in this way.
So things are kind of exactly the opposite of the perspective in this post.
For established EAs in a position of authority who want to say something about “AI alignment or infohazards”, there are several channels that they can act or dissent, and I don’t think the EA forum is a large part of that. It’s also trivial to create a new forum account, and a much more difficult task to really try to conceal their identity.