>> Let Open Philanthropy decide whether they think what we are doing helps with AI risk, or evaluate it yourself if you have the time.
Indeed, if I have the time is precisely the problem. I can’t know everyone in this community, and I’ve disagreed with the specific outcomes on too many occasions to trust by default. We started by trying to take a scalpel to the problem, and I could not tie initial impressions at grant time to those outcomes well enough to feel that was a good solution. Empirically, I don’t sufficiently trust OPs judgement either.
There is no objective “view from EA” that I’m standing against as much as people portray it that way here; just a complex jumble of opinions and path dependence and personalities with all kinds of flaws.
>> Also, to be clear, my current (admittedly very limited sense) of your implementation, is that it is more of a blacklist than a simple redirecting of resources towards fewer priority areas.
So with that in mind this is the statement that felt like an accusation of lying (not an accusation of a history of lying), and I think we have arrived at the reconciliation that doesn’t involve lying: broad strokes were pragmatically needed in order to sufficiently reduce the priority areas that were causing issues. I can’t know all our grantees, and my estimation is I can’t divorce myself from responsibility for them, reputationally or otherwise.
After much introspection, I came to the conclusion that I prefer to leave potential value on the table than persist in that situation. I don’t want to be responsible for that community anymore, even if it seems to have positive EV.
(Just want to say, I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts and being so candid, Dustin. I find it very interesting and insightful to learn more about your perspective.)
this is the statement that felt like an accusation of lying (not an accusation of a history of lying), and I think we have arrived at the reconciliation that doesn’t involve lying: broad strokes were pragmatically needed in order to sufficiently reduce the priority areas that were causing issues. I can’t know all our grantees, and my estimation is I can’t divorce myself from responsibility for them, reputationally or otherwise.
I do think the top-level post could have done a better job at communicating the more blacklist nature of this new policy, but I greatly appreciate you clarifying that more in this thread (and also would have not described what’s going on in the top-level post as “lying”).
Your summary here also seems reasonable, based on my current understanding, though of course the exact nature of the “broad strokes” is important to be clear about.
Of course, there is lots of stuff we continue to disagree on, and I will again reiterate my willingness to write back and forth with you, or talk with you, about these issues as much as you are interested, but don’t want to make you feel like you are stuck in a conversation that realistically we are not going to make that much progress on in this specific context.
>> Let Open Philanthropy decide whether they think what we are doing helps with AI risk, or evaluate it yourself if you have the time.
Indeed, if I have the time is precisely the problem. I can’t know everyone in this community, and I’ve disagreed with the specific outcomes on too many occasions to trust by default. We started by trying to take a scalpel to the problem, and I could not tie initial impressions at grant time to those outcomes well enough to feel that was a good solution. Empirically, I don’t sufficiently trust OPs judgement either.
There is no objective “view from EA” that I’m standing against as much as people portray it that way here; just a complex jumble of opinions and path dependence and personalities with all kinds of flaws.
>> Also, to be clear, my current (admittedly very limited sense) of your implementation, is that it is more of a blacklist than a simple redirecting of resources towards fewer priority areas.
So with that in mind this is the statement that felt like an accusation of lying (not an accusation of a history of lying), and I think we have arrived at the reconciliation that doesn’t involve lying: broad strokes were pragmatically needed in order to sufficiently reduce the priority areas that were causing issues. I can’t know all our grantees, and my estimation is I can’t divorce myself from responsibility for them, reputationally or otherwise.
After much introspection, I came to the conclusion that I prefer to leave potential value on the table than persist in that situation. I don’t want to be responsible for that community anymore, even if it seems to have positive EV.
(Just want to say, I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts and being so candid, Dustin. I find it very interesting and insightful to learn more about your perspective.)
I do think the top-level post could have done a better job at communicating the more blacklist nature of this new policy, but I greatly appreciate you clarifying that more in this thread (and also would have not described what’s going on in the top-level post as “lying”).
Your summary here also seems reasonable, based on my current understanding, though of course the exact nature of the “broad strokes” is important to be clear about.
Of course, there is lots of stuff we continue to disagree on, and I will again reiterate my willingness to write back and forth with you, or talk with you, about these issues as much as you are interested, but don’t want to make you feel like you are stuck in a conversation that realistically we are not going to make that much progress on in this specific context.