I went to a MIRI workshop on decision theory last year. I came away with an understanding of a lot of points of how MIRI approaches these things that I’d have a very hard time writing up. In particular, at the end of the workshop I promised to write up the “Pi-maximising agent” idea and how it plays into MIRI’s thinking. I can describe this at a party fairly easily, but I get completely lost trying to turn it into a writeup. I don’t remember other things quite as well (eg “playing chicken with the Universe”) but they have the same feel. An awful lot of what MIRI knows seems to me folklore like this.
This is interesting and interacts with my comment in reply to Anna on clarity of communication. I think I’d like to see them write up more such folklore as carefully as possible; I’m not optimistic about attempts to outsource such write-ups.
I went to a MIRI workshop on decision theory last year. I came away with an understanding of a lot of points of how MIRI approaches these things that I’d have a very hard time writing up. In particular, at the end of the workshop I promised to write up the “Pi-maximising agent” idea and how it plays into MIRI’s thinking. I can describe this at a party fairly easily, but I get completely lost trying to turn it into a writeup. I don’t remember other things quite as well (eg “playing chicken with the Universe”) but they have the same feel. An awful lot of what MIRI knows seems to me folklore like this.
This is interesting and interacts with my comment in reply to Anna on clarity of communication. I think I’d like to see them write up more such folklore as carefully as possible; I’m not optimistic about attempts to outsource such write-ups.