To avoid lowering the quality of discussion by just posting snarky memes, I’ll explain my actual position: ”People may have bad reasons to believe X” is a good counter against the argument “People believe X, therefore X”. So for anyone whose thought process is “These EAs are very worried about AI so I am too”, I agree that there’s a worthwhile discussion to be had about why those EAs believe what they do, what their thought process is, and the track record both of similar claims and of claims made by people using similar thought processes. This is because you’re using their reasoning as a proxy—the causal chain to reality routes through those people’s reasoning methods. Like, “My doctor says this medicine will help me, so it will” is an argument that works because it routes through the doctor having access to evidence and arguments that you don’t know about, and you have a reason to believe that the doctor’s reasoning connects with reality well enough to be a useful proxy.
However, the fact that some EAs believe certain things about AI is not the only, nor the main, nor even a major component of the evidence and argument available. You can look at the arguments those people make, and the real world evidence they point to. This is so much stronger than just looking at their final beliefs that it basically makes it irrelevant. Say you go outside and the sun is out, the sky is clear, and there’s a pleasantly cool breeze, and you bump into the world’s most upbeat and optimistic man, who says “We’re having lovely weather today”. If you reason that this man’s thought process is heavily biased and he’s the kind of person who’s likely to say the weather is nicer than it is, and therefore you’re suspicious of his claim that the weather is nice, I’d say you’re making some kind of mistake.
To avoid lowering the quality of discussion by just posting snarky memes, I’ll explain my actual position:
”People may have bad reasons to believe X” is a good counter against the argument “People believe X, therefore X”. So for anyone whose thought process is “These EAs are very worried about AI so I am too”, I agree that there’s a worthwhile discussion to be had about why those EAs believe what they do, what their thought process is, and the track record both of similar claims and of claims made by people using similar thought processes. This is because you’re using their reasoning as a proxy—the causal chain to reality routes through those people’s reasoning methods. Like, “My doctor says this medicine will help me, so it will” is an argument that works because it routes through the doctor having access to evidence and arguments that you don’t know about, and you have a reason to believe that the doctor’s reasoning connects with reality well enough to be a useful proxy.
However, the fact that some EAs believe certain things about AI is not the only, nor the main, nor even a major component of the evidence and argument available. You can look at the arguments those people make, and the real world evidence they point to. This is so much stronger than just looking at their final beliefs that it basically makes it irrelevant. Say you go outside and the sun is out, the sky is clear, and there’s a pleasantly cool breeze, and you bump into the world’s most upbeat and optimistic man, who says “We’re having lovely weather today”. If you reason that this man’s thought process is heavily biased and he’s the kind of person who’s likely to say the weather is nicer than it is, and therefore you’re suspicious of his claim that the weather is nice, I’d say you’re making some kind of mistake.