This thread seems to have gone in an unhelpful direction.
Questioning motivations is a hard point to make well. I’m unwilling to endorse that they are never relevant, but it immediately becomes personal. Keeping the focus primarily on the level of the arguments themselves is an approach more likely to enlighten and less likely to lead to flamewars.
I’m not here to issue a moderation warning to anyone for the conversation ending up on the point of motivations. I do want to take my moderation hat off and suggest that people spend more time on the object level.
I will then put my moderation hat back on and say that this and Jan’s previous comment breaks norms. You can disagree with someone without being this insulting.
I agree the thread direction may be unhelpful, and flame wars are bad.
I disagree though about the merits of questioning motivations, I think its super important.
In the AI sphere, there are great theoretical arguments on all sides, good arguments for accelleration, caution, pausing etc. We can discuss these ad nauseum and I do think that’s useful. But I think motivations likely shape the history and current state of AI development more than unmotivated easoning and rational thought. Money and Power are strong motivators—EA’s have sidelined them at their peril before. Although we cannot know people’s hearts, we can see and analyse what they havedone and said in the past and what motivational pressure might affect them right now.
I also think its possislbe to have a somewhat object level about motivations.
This thread seems to have gone in an unhelpful direction.
Questioning motivations is a hard point to make well. I’m unwilling to endorse that they are never relevant, but it immediately becomes personal. Keeping the focus primarily on the level of the arguments themselves is an approach more likely to enlighten and less likely to lead to flamewars.
I’m not here to issue a moderation warning to anyone for the conversation ending up on the point of motivations. I do want to take my moderation hat off and suggest that people spend more time on the object level.
I will then put my moderation hat back on and say that this and Jan’s previous comment breaks norms. You can disagree with someone without being this insulting.
I agree the thread direction may be unhelpful, and flame wars are bad.
I disagree though about the merits of questioning motivations, I think its super important.
In the AI sphere, there are great theoretical arguments on all sides, good arguments for accelleration, caution, pausing etc. We can discuss these ad nauseum and I do think that’s useful. But I think motivations likely shape the history and current state of AI development more than unmotivated easoning and rational thought. Money and Power are strong motivators—EA’s have sidelined them at their peril before. Although we cannot know people’s hearts, we can see and analyse what they have done and said in the past and what motivational pressure might affect them right now.
I also think its possislbe to have a somewhat object level about motivations.
I think this article on the history of Modern AI outlines some of this well https://​​substack.com/​​home/​​post/​​p-185759007
I might write more about this later...