Could you say a bit more about your statement that “making recommendations such as . . . . ‘alignment people should not join Conjecture’ require an extremely high bar of evidence in my opinion”?
The poster stated that there are “more impactful places to work” and listed a number of them—shouldn’t they say that if they believe it is more likely than not true? They have stated their reasons; the reader can decide whether they are well-supported. The statement that Conjecture seems “relatively weak for skill building” seems supported by reasonable grounds. And the author’s characterization of likelihood that Conjecture is net-negative is merely “plausible.” That low bar seems hard to argue with; the base rate of for-profit companies without any known special governance safeguards acting like for-profit companies usually do (i.e., in a profit-maximinzing manner) is not low.
Maybe we’re getting too much into the semantics here but I would have found a headline of “we believe there are better places to work at” much more appropriate for the kind of statement they are making. 1. A blanket unconditional statement like this seems unjustified. Like I said before, if you believe in CoEm, Conjecture probably is the right place to work for. 2. Where does the “relatively weak for skill building” come from? A lot of their research isn’t public, a lot of engineering skills are not very tangible from the outside, etc. Why didn’t they just ask the many EA-aligned employees at Conjecture about what they thought of the skills they learned? Seems like such an easy way to correct for a potential mischaracterization. 3. Almost all AI alignment organizations are “plausibly” net negative. What if ARC evals underestimates their gain-of-function research? What if Redwood’s advances in interpretability lead to massive capability gains? What if CAIS’s efforts with the letter had backfired and rallied everyone against AI safety? This bar is basically meaningless without expected values.
Does that clarify where my skepticism comes from? Also, once again, my arguments should not be seen as a recommendation for Conjecture. I do agree with many of the criticisms made in the post.
Could you say a bit more about your statement that “making recommendations such as . . . . ‘alignment people should not join Conjecture’ require an extremely high bar of evidence in my opinion”?
The poster stated that there are “more impactful places to work” and listed a number of them—shouldn’t they say that if they believe it is more likely than not true? They have stated their reasons; the reader can decide whether they are well-supported. The statement that Conjecture seems “relatively weak for skill building” seems supported by reasonable grounds. And the author’s characterization of likelihood that Conjecture is net-negative is merely “plausible.” That low bar seems hard to argue with; the base rate of for-profit companies without any known special governance safeguards acting like for-profit companies usually do (i.e., in a profit-maximinzing manner) is not low.
Maybe we’re getting too much into the semantics here but I would have found a headline of “we believe there are better places to work at” much more appropriate for the kind of statement they are making.
1. A blanket unconditional statement like this seems unjustified. Like I said before, if you believe in CoEm, Conjecture probably is the right place to work for.
2. Where does the “relatively weak for skill building” come from? A lot of their research isn’t public, a lot of engineering skills are not very tangible from the outside, etc. Why didn’t they just ask the many EA-aligned employees at Conjecture about what they thought of the skills they learned? Seems like such an easy way to correct for a potential mischaracterization.
3. Almost all AI alignment organizations are “plausibly” net negative. What if ARC evals underestimates their gain-of-function research? What if Redwood’s advances in interpretability lead to massive capability gains? What if CAIS’s efforts with the letter had backfired and rallied everyone against AI safety? This bar is basically meaningless without expected values.
Does that clarify where my skepticism comes from? Also, once again, my arguments should not be seen as a recommendation for Conjecture. I do agree with many of the criticisms made in the post.