It seems to me that between about 2004 and 2014, Yudkowsky was the best person in the world to listen to on the subject of AGI and AI risks. That is, deferring to Yudkowsky would have been a better choice than deferring to literally anyone else in the world. Moreover, after about 2014 Yudkowsky would probably have been in the top 10; if you are going to choose 10 people to split your deference between (which I do not recommend, I recommend thinking for oneself), Yudkowsky should be one of those people and had you dropped Yudkowsky from the list in 2014 you would have missed out on some important stuff. Would you agree with this?
On the positive side, I’d be interested to see a top ten list from you of people you think should be deferred to as much or more than Yudkowsky on matters of AGI and AI risks.*
*What do I mean by this? Idk, here’s a partial operationalization: Timelines, takeoff speeds, technical AI alignment, and p(doom).
[ETA: lest people write me off as a Yudkowsky fanboy, I wish to emphasize that I too think people are overindexing on Yudkowsky’s views, I too think there are a bunch of people who defer to him too much, I too think he is often overconfident, wrong about various things, etc.]
[ETA: OK, I guess I think Bostrom probably was actually slightly better than Yudkowsky even on 20-year timespan.]
[ETA: I wish to reemphasize, but more strongly, that Yudkowsky seems pretty overconfident not just now but historically. Anyone deferring to him should keep this in mind; maybe directly update towards his credences but don’t adopt his credences. E.g. think “we’re probably doomed” but not “99% chance of doom” Also, Yudkowsky doesn’t seem to be listening to others and understanding their positions well. So his criticisms of other views should be listened to but not deferred to, IMO.]
Oops! Dunno what happened, I thought it was not yet posted. (I thought I had posted it at first, but then I looked for it and didn’t see it & instead saw the unposted draft, but while I was looking for it I saw Richard’s post… I guess it must have been some sort of issue with having multiple tabs open. I’ll delete the other version.)
Beat me to it & said it better than I could.
My now-obsolete draft comment was going to say:
It seems to me that between about 2004 and 2014, Yudkowsky was the best person in the world to listen to on the subject of AGI and AI risks. That is, deferring to Yudkowsky would have been a better choice than deferring to literally anyone else in the world. Moreover, after about 2014 Yudkowsky would probably have been in the top 10; if you are going to choose 10 people to split your deference between (which I do not recommend, I recommend thinking for oneself), Yudkowsky should be one of those people and had you dropped Yudkowsky from the list in 2014 you would have missed out on some important stuff. Would you agree with this?
On the positive side, I’d be interested to see a top ten list from you of people you think should be deferred to as much or more than Yudkowsky on matters of AGI and AI risks.*
*What do I mean by this? Idk, here’s a partial operationalization: Timelines, takeoff speeds, technical AI alignment, and p(doom).
[ETA: lest people write me off as a Yudkowsky fanboy, I wish to emphasize that I too think people are overindexing on Yudkowsky’s views, I too think there are a bunch of people who defer to him too much, I too think he is often overconfident, wrong about various things, etc.]
[ETA: OK, I guess I think Bostrom probably was actually slightly better than Yudkowsky even on 20-year timespan.]
[ETA: I wish to reemphasize, but more strongly, that Yudkowsky seems pretty overconfident not just now but historically. Anyone deferring to him should keep this in mind; maybe directly update towards his credences but don’t adopt his credences. E.g. think “we’re probably doomed” but not “99% chance of doom” Also, Yudkowsky doesn’t seem to be listening to others and understanding their positions well. So his criticisms of other views should be listened to but not deferred to, IMO.]
Didn’t you post that comment right here?
Oops! Dunno what happened, I thought it was not yet posted. (I thought I had posted it at first, but then I looked for it and didn’t see it & instead saw the unposted draft, but while I was looking for it I saw Richard’s post… I guess it must have been some sort of issue with having multiple tabs open. I’ll delete the other version.)