Fwiw, I think your examples are all based on less controversial conditionals, though, which makes them less informative here. And I also think the topics that are conditioned on in your examples already received sufficient analyses that make me less worried about people making things worse* as they will be aware of more relevant considerations, in contrast to the treatment in the background discussions that Larks discussed.
*(except the timelines example, which still feels slightly different though as everything seems fairly uncertain about AI strategy)
Hmm good point that my examples are maybe too uncontroversial, so it’s somewhat biased and not a fair comparison. Still, maybe I don’t really understand what counts as controversial, but at the very least, it’s easy to come up with examples of conditionals that many people (and many EAs) likely place <50% credence on, but are still useful to have on the forum:
The AI timelines example, again (because mathematically you can’t have >50% credence in both long and short AI timelines)
But perhaps “many people (and many EAs) likely place <50% credence on” is not a good operationalization of “controversial.” In that case maybe it’d be helpful to operationalize what we mean by that word.
But perhaps “many people (and many EAs) likely place <50% credence on” is not a good operationalization of “controversial.” In that case maybe it’d be helpful to operationalize what we mean by that word.
I think the relevant consideration here isn’t whether a post is (implicitly or not) assuming controversial premises, it’s the degree to which it’s (implicitly or not) recommending controversial courses of action.
There’s a big difference between a longtermist analysis of the importance of nuclear nonproliferation and a longtermist analysis of airstrikes on foreign data centers, for instance.
Fwiw, I think your examples are all based on less controversial conditionals, though, which makes them less informative here. And I also think the topics that are conditioned on in your examples already received sufficient analyses that make me less worried about people making things worse* as they will be aware of more relevant considerations, in contrast to the treatment in the background discussions that Larks discussed.
*(except the timelines example, which still feels slightly different though as everything seems fairly uncertain about AI strategy)
Hmm good point that my examples are maybe too uncontroversial, so it’s somewhat biased and not a fair comparison. Still, maybe I don’t really understand what counts as controversial, but at the very least, it’s easy to come up with examples of conditionals that many people (and many EAs) likely place <50% credence on, but are still useful to have on the forum:
evaluating organophosphate pesticides and other neurotoxicants (implicit conditional: global health is a plausibly cost-competitive priority with other top EA priorities)
Factors for shrimp welfare (implicit conditional: shrimp are moral patients)
The assymetry and the far future (implicit conditional: Asymmetry views, among others
ways forecasting can be useful for the longterm-future (implicit conditional: the LT future matters in decision-relevant ways)
The AI timelines example, again (because mathematically you can’t have >50% credence in both long and short AI timelines)
But perhaps “many people (and many EAs) likely place <50% credence on” is not a good operationalization of “controversial.” In that case maybe it’d be helpful to operationalize what we mean by that word.
I think the relevant consideration here isn’t whether a post is (implicitly or not) assuming controversial premises, it’s the degree to which it’s (implicitly or not) recommending controversial courses of action.
There’s a big difference between a longtermist analysis of the importance of nuclear nonproliferation and a longtermist analysis of airstrikes on foreign data centers, for instance.