Expert opinion has always been a substitute for object level arguments because of deference culture. Nobody has object level arguments for why x-risk in the 21st century is around 1/6: we just think it might be because Toby Ord says so and he is very credible. Is this ideal? No. But we do it because expert priors are the second best alternative when there is no data to base our judgments off of.
Given this, I think criticizing an expert’s priors is functionally an object level argument, since the expert’s prior is so often used as a substitute for object level analysis.
I agree that a slippery slope endpoint would be bad but I do not think criticizing expert priors takes us there.
Expert opinion has always been a substitute for object level arguments because of deference culture. Nobody has object level arguments for why x-risk in the 21st century is around 1/6: we just think it might be because Toby Ord says so and he is very credible. Is this ideal? No. But we do it because expert priors are the second best alternative when there is no data to base our judgments off of.
Given this, I think criticizing an expert’s priors is functionally an object level argument, since the expert’s prior is so often used as a substitute for object level analysis.
I agree that a slippery slope endpoint would be bad but I do not think criticizing expert priors takes us there.