> The piece relies heavily on criticism of Connor, Conjecture CEO, but does not attempt to provide a balanced assessment: there are no positive comments written about Connor along with the critiques
Could you elaborate more on your answer to this? I’m left a bit uncertain about whether there are redeeming aspects of Connor/Conjecture. For example, I might be inclined to count switching from capabilities to alignment for a lot of brownie points.
Hi Nuno thanks for the question. Not sure if I am fully answering the question, so feel free to let us know if this doesn’t address your point.
We added this paragraph as a result of Conjecture’s feedback, which accounts for his change of mind:
Although this section focuses on the negatives, there are of course positive aspects to Connor’s character. He is clearly a highly driven individual, who has built a medium-sized organization in his early twenties. He has shown a willingness to engage with arguments and change his mind on safety concerns, for example delaying the release of his GPT-2 replication. Moreover, in recent years Connor has been a vocal public advocate for safety: although we disagree in some cases with the framing of the resulting media articles, in general we are excited to see greater public awareness of safety risks.
We don’t want to unfairly hold people’s mistakes from their college days against them – many people exaggerate or overestimate (intentionally or not) their own accomplishments. Even a partial replica of GPT-2 is an impressive technical accomplishment for an undergraduate, so this project does attest to Connor’s technical abilities. It is also positive that he admitted his mistake publicly. However, overall we do believe the project demonstrates a lack of attention to detail and rigor. Moreover, we haven’t seen signs that his behavior has dramatically changed.
We haven’t attempted to quantify or sum up the positives and negatives in a more quantitative way that might make it easier to judge our perecption of this. On net we are still fairly concerned. Some things that might update us positively in favor of Connor are:
Could you elaborate more on your answer to this? I’m left a bit uncertain about whether there are redeeming aspects of Connor/Conjecture. For example, I might be inclined to count switching from capabilities to alignment for a lot of brownie points.
Hi Nuno thanks for the question. Not sure if I am fully answering the question, so feel free to let us know if this doesn’t address your point.
We added this paragraph as a result of Conjecture’s feedback, which accounts for his change of mind:
We also modified this paragraph:
We haven’t attempted to quantify or sum up the positives and negatives in a more quantitative way that might make it easier to judge our perecption of this. On net we are still fairly concerned. Some things that might update us positively in favor of Connor are:
Seeing a solid plan for balancing profit and safety motives
Hearing about significant improvements in Conjecture and Connor’s representation of themselves to external parties
Connor acknowledging his role in the formation of Stability AI and it’s contribution to race dynamics
Cheers