I like the general point about recognizing Eliezer’s flaws and breaking through lazy dogmas that have been allowed to take hold just because he said them. I think it’s important for readers to know that Eliezer is arrogant, in case that doesn’t come across in his writing, but I don’t think these examples make the case that he’s frequently or egregiously wrong. Just sometimes wrong.
I am annoyed by the effect of that one Facebook post on the entire rationalist community’s opinions of animals, but I can’t put all the blame on Eliezer for that. He wrote one comment on the Forum that he shared to facebook, and in it he admitted that eating animals is a sin his society lets him get away with and that he wouldn’t eat animals if he felt he could get adequate nutrition otherwise. He’s not making strong claims about animal consciousness— just giving his take. I think he’s rationalizing in places, and I think a lot of people were grateful for the excuse not to give matter any more thought, but I don’t think it’s fair to act like he goes around parading this view when he doesn’t. The only text we have is that decade-old comment.
Seems like a low blow to say his strength isn’t in forming true beliefs, the thing he wrote the Sequences about, when most of your complaints are about him being arrogant or not respecting expertise, not being probably wrong especially often.
I have a distinct memory, albeit one which could plausibly be false, of Eliezer once stating that he was ’100% sure that nonhuman animals aren’t conscious’ because of his model of consciousness. If he said it, it’s now been taken down from whichever site it appeared on. I’m now genuinely curious whether anyone else remembers this (or some actual exchange on which my psyche might have based it)
I would be shocked if Eliezer ever said he was “100% sure” about anything. It would just sound gauche coming from him.
Using the log odds exposes the fact that reaching infinite certainty requires infinitely strong evidence, just as infinite absurdity requires infinitely strong counterevidence.
Furthermore, all sorts of standard theorems in probability have special cases if you try to plug 1s or 0s into them—like what happens if you try to do a Bayesian update on an observation to which you assigned probability 0.
So I propose that it makes sense to say that 1 and 0 are not in the probabilities; just as negative and positive infinity, which do not obey the field axioms, are not in the real numbers.
Wait sorry it’s hard to see the broader context of this comment on account of being on my phone and comment sections being hard to navigate on ea forum. I don’t know if I said eliezer had 100% credence, but if I did, that was wrong.
Eliezer has a huge number of controversial beliefs—about AI, physics, Newcombe’s problem, zombies, nanotech, etc. Many of these are about things I know nothing about. But there are a few things where he adopts deeply controversial views that I know something about. And almost every time—well above half the time—that I know enough to fact check him, he turns out to be completely wrong in embarrassing ways.
Based on this essay it seems like by “completely wrong in embarrassing ways” you mean that he’s not knowledgeable about or respectful of what the local experts think. It’s not like we know they are right on most of these questions.
I don’t think so. I argued in detail against each of Eliezer’s views. I think I do know that Eliezer is wrong about zombies, decision theory, and animal consciousness. I didn’t just point to what experts believe, I also explained why Eliezer is wrong.
My read on what you meant by “wrong about zombies” was that he didn’t understand what the field was claiming with the use of certain words and was dismissing a strawman.
He didn’t understand how the field was using a certain word. If a person uses words incorrectly, based on a misreading, and then interprets arguments as being obviously wrong based on their misinterpretation, they are making errors, not just failing to agree with the consensus view.
Misunderstanding someone else’s claim doesn’t strike me as an “egregious error”. I don’t feel he should have to understand the entirety of the academic view to have his own view. Although I agree he was mistaken to dismiss that view using words he had misunderstood.
If you claim to be justified in having a near zero credence in some view, and the reason for that is because you don’t know what words mean that are totally standard among people who are informed about the subject matter, and then you go on to dismiss those who are informed who disagree with you, that seems pretty eggregious.
I’m sympathetic to that. I just also get a whiff of “it’s my group’s prerogative to talk about this and he didn’t pay proper deference”. As a point of comparison, I’m sympathetic to theologians who thought the new atheists were total yokels who didn’t understand any of the subtleties of their religions and their arguments, because they often didn’t. But I also think the new atheists were more right and I don’t think it would have been a good use of time for them to understand more. I’m not trying to be insulting to academic philosophy but rather insist that the world of these topics doesn’t need to revolve around it.
Eliezer was wrong to mischaracterize other people’s views. But I don’t think he was especially wrong for not knowing what the academic landscape was on a topic before opining on it himself.
I like the general point about recognizing Eliezer’s flaws and breaking through lazy dogmas that have been allowed to take hold just because he said them. I think it’s important for readers to know that Eliezer is arrogant, in case that doesn’t come across in his writing, but I don’t think these examples make the case that he’s frequently or egregiously wrong. Just sometimes wrong.
I am annoyed by the effect of that one Facebook post on the entire rationalist community’s opinions of animals, but I can’t put all the blame on Eliezer for that. He wrote one comment on the Forum that he shared to facebook, and in it he admitted that eating animals is a sin his society lets him get away with and that he wouldn’t eat animals if he felt he could get adequate nutrition otherwise. He’s not making strong claims about animal consciousness— just giving his take. I think he’s rationalizing in places, and I think a lot of people were grateful for the excuse not to give matter any more thought, but I don’t think it’s fair to act like he goes around parading this view when he doesn’t. The only text we have is that decade-old comment.
Seems like a low blow to say his strength isn’t in forming true beliefs, the thing he wrote the Sequences about, when most of your complaints are about him being arrogant or not respecting expertise, not being probably wrong especially often.
I have a distinct memory, albeit one which could plausibly be false, of Eliezer once stating that he was ’100% sure that nonhuman animals aren’t conscious’ because of his model of consciousness. If he said it, it’s now been taken down from whichever site it appeared on. I’m now genuinely curious whether anyone else remembers this (or some actual exchange on which my psyche might have based it)
I would be shocked if Eliezer ever said he was “100% sure” about anything. It would just sound gauche coming from him.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QGkYCwyC7wTDyt3yT/0-and-1-are-not-probabilities
Wait sorry it’s hard to see the broader context of this comment on account of being on my phone and comment sections being hard to navigate on ea forum. I don’t know if I said eliezer had 100% credence, but if I did, that was wrong.
I agree—but that’s why it stuck in my mind so strongly. I remember thinking how incongruous it was at the time.
Eliezer has a huge number of controversial beliefs—about AI, physics, Newcombe’s problem, zombies, nanotech, etc. Many of these are about things I know nothing about. But there are a few things where he adopts deeply controversial views that I know something about. And almost every time—well above half the time—that I know enough to fact check him, he turns out to be completely wrong in embarrassing ways.
Based on this essay it seems like by “completely wrong in embarrassing ways” you mean that he’s not knowledgeable about or respectful of what the local experts think. It’s not like we know they are right on most of these questions.
I don’t think so. I argued in detail against each of Eliezer’s views. I think I do know that Eliezer is wrong about zombies, decision theory, and animal consciousness. I didn’t just point to what experts believe, I also explained why Eliezer is wrong.
My read on what you meant by “wrong about zombies” was that he didn’t understand what the field was claiming with the use of certain words and was dismissing a strawman.
He didn’t understand how the field was using a certain word. If a person uses words incorrectly, based on a misreading, and then interprets arguments as being obviously wrong based on their misinterpretation, they are making errors, not just failing to agree with the consensus view.
Misunderstanding someone else’s claim doesn’t strike me as an “egregious error”. I don’t feel he should have to understand the entirety of the academic view to have his own view. Although I agree he was mistaken to dismiss that view using words he had misunderstood.
If you claim to be justified in having a near zero credence in some view, and the reason for that is because you don’t know what words mean that are totally standard among people who are informed about the subject matter, and then you go on to dismiss those who are informed who disagree with you, that seems pretty eggregious.
I’m sympathetic to that. I just also get a whiff of “it’s my group’s prerogative to talk about this and he didn’t pay proper deference”. As a point of comparison, I’m sympathetic to theologians who thought the new atheists were total yokels who didn’t understand any of the subtleties of their religions and their arguments, because they often didn’t. But I also think the new atheists were more right and I don’t think it would have been a good use of time for them to understand more. I’m not trying to be insulting to academic philosophy but rather insist that the world of these topics doesn’t need to revolve around it.
Eliezer was wrong to mischaracterize other people’s views. But I don’t think he was especially wrong for not knowing what the academic landscape was on a topic before opining on it himself.