Thank you for this post, I thought it was valuable. I’d just like to flag that regarding your recommendation, “we could do more to connect “near-term” issues like data privacy and algorithmic bias with “long-term” concerns”—I think this is good if done in the right way, but can also be bad if done in the wrong way. More specifically, insofar as near-term and long-term concerns are similar (eg., lack of transparency in deep learning means that we can’t tell if parole systems today are using proxies we don’t want, and plausibly could mean that we won’t know the goals of superintelligent systems in the future), then it makes sense to highlight these similarities. On the other hand, insofar as the concerns aren’t the same, statements that gloss over the differences (eg., statements about how we need UBI because automation will lead to super intelligent robots that aren’t aligned with human interests) can be harmful, for several reasons: people who understand the logic doesn’t necessarily flow through will be turned off, if people are convinced that long-term concerns are just near-term concerns at a larger scale then they might ignore solving problems necessary for long-term success that don’t have near-term analogues, etc.
Thank you for this post, I thought it was valuable. I’d just like to flag that regarding your recommendation, “we could do more to connect “near-term” issues like data privacy and algorithmic bias with “long-term” concerns”—I think this is good if done in the right way, but can also be bad if done in the wrong way. More specifically, insofar as near-term and long-term concerns are similar (eg., lack of transparency in deep learning means that we can’t tell if parole systems today are using proxies we don’t want, and plausibly could mean that we won’t know the goals of superintelligent systems in the future), then it makes sense to highlight these similarities. On the other hand, insofar as the concerns aren’t the same, statements that gloss over the differences (eg., statements about how we need UBI because automation will lead to super intelligent robots that aren’t aligned with human interests) can be harmful, for several reasons: people who understand the logic doesn’t necessarily flow through will be turned off, if people are convinced that long-term concerns are just near-term concerns at a larger scale then they might ignore solving problems necessary for long-term success that don’t have near-term analogues, etc.