The “death with dignity” post came in the wake of Eliezer writing hundreds of thousands of words about why he thinks alignment is hard in the Late 2021 MIRI Conversations (in addition to the many specific views and arguments about alignment difficulty he’s written up in the preceding 15+ years). So it seems wrong to say that everyone was taking it seriously based on deference alone.
I think “deference alone” is a stronger claim than the one we should worry about. People might read the arguments on either side (or disproportionately Eliezer’s arguments), but then defer largely to Eliezer’s weighing of arguments because of his status/position, confidence, references to having complicated internal models (that he often doesn’t explain or link explanations to), or emotive writing style.
What share of people with views similar to Eliezer’s do you expect to have read these conversations? They’re very long, not well organized, and have no summaries/takeaways. The format seems pretty bad if you value your time.
Also, insofar as Paul recently argued for X and Eliezer responded with a valid counter-argument for Y, it doesn’t follow that Eliezer had never considered anything like X or Y in initially reaching his confidence. Eliezer’s stated view is that the new Paul arguments seem obviously invalid and didn’t update him at all when he read them.
If the new Paul arguments seem obviously invalid, then Eliezer should be able to explain why in such a way that convinces Paul. Has this generally been the case?
I think “deference alone” is a stronger claim than the one we should worry about. People might read the arguments on either side (or disproportionately Eliezer’s arguments), but then defer largely to Eliezer’s weighing of arguments because of his status/position, confidence, references to having complicated internal models (that he often doesn’t explain or link explanations to), or emotive writing style.
What share of people with views similar to Eliezer’s do you expect to have read these conversations? They’re very long, not well organized, and have no summaries/takeaways. The format seems pretty bad if you value your time.
I think the AGI Ruin: A List of Lethalities post was formatted pretty accessibly, but that came after death with dignity.
If the new Paul arguments seem obviously invalid, then Eliezer should be able to explain why in such a way that convinces Paul. Has this generally been the case?