It probably wouldn’t hurt if AI inclined EAs focused more on getting experts on board. It’s a very bad situation to be in if the vast majority of experts on a given topic think that a given issue you are interested in is overblown, because 1) tractabilty goes down the tubes, since most experts actively contradict you, 2) your ability to collaborate with other experts is greatly hampered, since most experts won’t work with you, and 3) it becomes really easy for people to assume that you’re a crackpot. I’m also not sure if it’s even ‘rational’ for non experts to get involved in this until a majority of experts in the field is on board. I mean, if person A has no experience with a topic, and the majority of experts say one thing, but person A gets convinced that the opposite is true by an expert in the minority, am I wrong in thinking that that’s not a great precedent to set?
It probably wouldn’t hurt if AI inclined EAs focused more on getting experts on board. It’s a very bad situation to be in if the vast majority of experts on a given topic think that a given issue you are interested in is overblown, because 1) tractabilty goes down the tubes, since most experts actively contradict you, 2) your ability to collaborate with other experts is greatly hampered, since most experts won’t work with you, and 3) it becomes really easy for people to assume that you’re a crackpot. I’m also not sure if it’s even ‘rational’ for non experts to get involved in this until a majority of experts in the field is on board. I mean, if person A has no experience with a topic, and the majority of experts say one thing, but person A gets convinced that the opposite is true by an expert in the minority, am I wrong in thinking that that’s not a great precedent to set?