It seems that your comment is mainly about successes by Bostrom in the (medium to more distant) past, while the post is about experience in the more recent past and expectations for the future. I would say that the expectations for the future are what is relevant to evaluate whether it’s a good thing or not for Bostrom to step down as Director (?)
Just mentioning some examples:
Bostrom has succeeded at this, and the group of people (especially the early FHI cast including Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler, Andrew Snyder Beattie, Owain Evans, and Stuart Armstrong) he has assembled under the core FHI research team have made great contributions to many really important questions that I care about, and I cannot think of any other individual who would have been able to do the same
All of the people mentioned joined a long time ago and all but Sandberg have left FHI. Is there anyone of a comparable quality that joined in the last 5 years?
For core FHI work, like “Eternity in Six Hours” (one of the papers that’s been most influential on my world view) I see what seems to me genuine interest in figuring out the truth and to answer the big questions, instead of secretly trying to trick me into supporting them, or get me to buy into their ideology, or support their favorite political cause or social movement, or to suspiciously shy away from a conclusion whenever that conclusion would be too hard to defend publicly to people who only want to spend 5 minutes on this question.
The paper you mentioned was written 10 years ago. Are there any comparable more recent examples?
I think it would be bad to let it fall in the hands of someone interested in making FHI into just another talent funnel, or another machine for producing prestige for Effective Altruism or AI Alignment or the people running FHI, while using up the credibility and intellectual integrity of Bostrom and many other core researchers who have created one of the highest integrity research institutions in the world.
It’s not clear to me why this is a point in favour of Bostrom rather than against: In the last five years (until the hiring freeze started) it seems that is roughly what FHI (minus the macro strategy group) started to become under his leadership.
Overall, it looks to me that even if one agrees with all your statements about past successes and value of Bostrom as a leader of FHI, it doesn’t really make a case for Bostrom staying on as FHI Director now . (Though I guess it still makes the case for shutting down FHI rather than having it continue under new leadership.)
All of the people mentioned joined a long time ago and all but Sandberg have left GPI. Is there anyone of a comparable quality that joined in the last 5 years?
Just two quick nitpicks: I think you mean “FHI” not “GPI”. And I think Drexler is still at FHI in addition to Sandberg. But you’re right that ASB, Owain, and Stuart Armstrong have left FHI.
It seems that your comment is mainly about successes by Bostrom in the (medium to more distant) past, while the post is about experience in the more recent past and expectations for the future. I would say that the expectations for the future are what is relevant to evaluate whether it’s a good thing or not for Bostrom to step down as Director (?)
Just mentioning some examples:
All of the people mentioned joined a long time ago and all but Sandberg have left FHI. Is there anyone of a comparable quality that joined in the last 5 years?
The paper you mentioned was written 10 years ago. Are there any comparable more recent examples?
It’s not clear to me why this is a point in favour of Bostrom rather than against: In the last five years (until the hiring freeze started) it seems that is roughly what FHI (minus the macro strategy group) started to become under his leadership.
Overall, it looks to me that even if one agrees with all your statements about past successes and value of Bostrom as a leader of FHI, it doesn’t really make a case for Bostrom staying on as FHI Director now . (Though I guess it still makes the case for shutting down FHI rather than having it continue under new leadership.)
EDIT: Corrected a GPI/FHI typo.
Great points.
~
Just two quick nitpicks: I think you mean “FHI” not “GPI”. And I think Drexler is still at FHI in addition to Sandberg. But you’re right that ASB, Owain, and Stuart Armstrong have left FHI.
Thanks for pointing out the FHI/GPI mistake, I’ve corrected that.
I also thought Drexler was still at FHI, but I checked and this doesn’t seem to be the case: He’s not mentioned on the team page and his website at FHI has been taken down.
He’s at GovAI.
As an affiliate, though, not as an employee. (And they seem to have lots of affiliates, so not clear what this actually means.)
He listed GovAI on this (very good!) post too: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5hApNw5f7uG8RXxGS/the-open-agency-model
Yeah dunno exactly what the nature of his relationship/link