Having informally pitched EA in many different ways to many different people, I’ve noticed that the strongest counter-reaction I tend to get is re: maximization (except when I talk to engineers). So nowadays I replace “maximize” with “more”, and proactively talk about scenarios where maximization is perilous, where you can be mislead by modeling when being maximizing-oriented, etc. (Actually I tend to personalize my pitches, but that’s not scalable of course.)
You say “I expect discussions based on this elevator pitch to add more value faster to the average passersby” which I interpret as meaning you haven’t yet tried this pitch elsewhere, so I’d be curious to hear an update on how that goes. If it works, I might incorporate some elements :)
It’s experience driven. I haven’t done the full “it’s a catchy alliteration!” on anybody really, but this is based on speed at arriving at cruxes. One at a time, also, is the move.
I think the intuition that goodhart (and other things) washes out all the value from the 3 Ms tends toward nihilism/defeatism or not trying at all if it’s not challenged or corrected for, even though it’s broadly correct/useful.
Having informally pitched EA in many different ways to many different people, I’ve noticed that the strongest counter-reaction I tend to get is re: maximization (except when I talk to engineers). So nowadays I replace “maximize” with “more”, and proactively talk about scenarios where maximization is perilous, where you can be mislead by modeling when being maximizing-oriented, etc. (Actually I tend to personalize my pitches, but that’s not scalable of course.)
You say “I expect discussions based on this elevator pitch to add more value faster to the average passersby” which I interpret as meaning you haven’t yet tried this pitch elsewhere, so I’d be curious to hear an update on how that goes. If it works, I might incorporate some elements :)
It’s experience driven. I haven’t done the full “it’s a catchy alliteration!” on anybody really, but this is based on speed at arriving at cruxes. One at a time, also, is the move.
I think the intuition that goodhart (and other things) washes out all the value from the 3 Ms tends toward nihilism/defeatism or not trying at all if it’s not challenged or corrected for, even though it’s broadly correct/useful.