To get a pause at any time you have to start asking now. It’s totally academic to ask about when exactly to pause and it’s not robust to try to wait until the last possible minute. Anyone taking pause advocacy seriously realizes this pretty quickly.
But honestly all I hear are excuses. You wouldn’t want to help me if Carl said it was the right thing to do or you’d have already realized what I said yourself. You wouldn’t be waiting for Carl’s permission or anyone else’s. What you’re looking for is permission to stay on this corrupt be-the-problem strategy and it shows.
To get a pause at any time you have to start asking now. It’s totally academic to ask about when exactly to pause and it’s not robust to try to wait until the last possible minute. Anyone taking pause advocacy seriously realizes this pretty quickly.
As Carl says, society may only get one shot at a pause. So if we got it now, and not when we have a 10x speed up in AI development because of AI, I think that would be worse. It could certainly make sense now to build the field and to draft legislation. But it’s also possible to advocate for pausing when some threshold or trigger is hit, and not now. It’s also possible that advocating for an early pause burns bridges with people who might have supported a pause later.
What you’re looking for is permission to stay on this corrupt be-the-problem strategy and it shows.
I personally still have significant uncertainty as to the best course of action, and I understand you are under a lot of stress, but I don’t think this characterization is an effective way of shifting people towards your point of view.
As Carl says, society may only get one shot at a pause. So if we got it now, and not when we have a 10x speed up in AI development because of AI, I think that would be worse. It could certainly make sense now to build the field and to draft legislation. But it’s also possible to advocate for pausing when some threshold or trigger is hit, and not now. It’s also possible that advocating for an early pause burns bridges with people who might have supported a pause later.
This is so out of touch with the realities of opinion change. It sounds smart and it lets EAs and rationalists keep doing what they’re doing, which is why people repeat it. This claim that we would only get one shot at a pause is asinine— pause would become more popular as an option the more people were familiar with it. It’s only the AI industry and EA that do not like the idea of pausing and pretend like they’re gonna withdraw support that we actually never had if we do something they don’t like.
The main thing we can do as a movement is gain popular support by talking about the message. There is no reliable way to “time” asks. None of that makes any sense. Honestly, most people who give this argument are industry apologists who just want you feel out of your league if you do anything against their interests. Hardware overhang was the same shit.
I personally still have significant uncertainty as to the best course of action, and I understand you are under a lot of stress, but I don’t think this characterization is an effective way of shifting people towards your point of view.
Ah, the EA “fuck you”.
I see, so other people (😉) might not agree with me bc of how I say it, and rather than it being their responsibility to seek truth, that’s my fault for not behaving the way you— oops, I mean “they”— like. It’s just ineffective, so nobody listening has any responsibilities and should probably go back to working at an AI company.
Hey Holly, it sounds like you’re frustrated by how people in EA are engaging with the idea of a pause. I’m sure that’s really hard, and I’m sure I don’t know even a fraction of what you’ve gone through. I know you’re doing this advocacy work because you care a lot, and I really appreciate that. You know that I personally support your work.
However, I’m worried that this thread is becoming unproductive, and risks making the Forum feel like less of a safe space[1].
In particular, my concern is that you are criticizing @Denkenberger🔸 directly in a way that appears to come from nowhere. @Denkenberger🔸 doesn’t say anything about their personal views on a pause before you respond with:
But honestly all I hear are excuses. You wouldn’t want to help me if Carl said it was the right thing to do or you’d have already realized what I said yourself. You wouldn’t be waiting for Carl’s permission or anyone else’s. What you’re looking for is permission to stay on this corrupt be-the-problem strategy and it shows.
In my opinion, this sort of accusation without evidence erodes the Forum’s ability to be a safe community space for important discussions. If it’s the case that I’m missing some context and you have personal beef with @Denkenberger🔸, then I don’t think the Forum is the appropriate place to hash that out.
To be clear, I think the following are broadly fine and often good (assuming adherence to our Forum norms):
Criticizing ideas or actions that you disagree with, or see flaws in
Accusing a person or org of doing harm when you have some evidence to back that up
Sharing your feelings, including feelings of hurt and frustration
Holding those in power accountable
Flagging issues about the EA community, especially those that you think others are too afraid to flag
Flagging when someone is potentially not being truth-seeking, or is otherwise not following Forum norms (ideally in a kind way because our norms are unusual compared to the rest of the internet)
So I’d like to suggest that you take a step back from this thread. If you find yourself getting frustrated at others on the Forum elsewhere, I’d suggest taking a break from those as well.
You’ve written some of the best posts on this Forum, and the Forum Team greatly values your contributions. At the same time, I also think it’s important that the Forum continues to be a productive discussion space.
The Forum should be a great and safe space: we’re working on hard problems, and the internet can be rough! We don’t want arbitrary barriers to keep people from joining discussions on the Forum, we don’t want people to be miserable on the Forum, and we want to promote excellent discussions and content.
Civility and charitable discussion—the Forum should feel like a breath of fresh air and a refuge of sanity. When you join a discussion on the Forum, you should be able to reasonably expect that the other people won’t twist your words, won’t call you names, etc.
Safety—if users feel unsafe on the Forum — they’re being threatened, or they’re worried that if they post, they’ll have to fend off trolls on their own, etc. — that’s our problem. We need to prevent this.
I think you hit the nail on the head— this forum is not a safe space for me. Like you said, I’m an all-time top poster, and yet I get snobby discouragement on everything I write since I started working on Pause, with the general theme that advocacy is not smart enough for EAs (and a secondary theme of wanting to work for AI companies).
This is a serious problem given what the EA Forum was supposed to be. It’s not a problem with following your rules for polite posts, but it’s against something more important— the purpose of the Forum and of the EA community.
But, I’ve clearly reached the end of my rope, and since I’d like to keep my account and be able to post new stuff here, I’ll just stop commenting.
I see that you are getting some downvotes, and while I disagree with this comment in particular I’m glad that you are there in the arena strongly pushing your vision of the good :)
To get a pause at any time you have to start asking now. It’s totally academic to ask about when exactly to pause and it’s not robust to try to wait until the last possible minute. Anyone taking pause advocacy seriously realizes this pretty quickly.
But honestly all I hear are excuses. You wouldn’t want to help me if Carl said it was the right thing to do or you’d have already realized what I said yourself. You wouldn’t be waiting for Carl’s permission or anyone else’s. What you’re looking for is permission to stay on this corrupt be-the-problem strategy and it shows.
As Carl says, society may only get one shot at a pause. So if we got it now, and not when we have a 10x speed up in AI development because of AI, I think that would be worse. It could certainly make sense now to build the field and to draft legislation. But it’s also possible to advocate for pausing when some threshold or trigger is hit, and not now. It’s also possible that advocating for an early pause burns bridges with people who might have supported a pause later.
I personally still have significant uncertainty as to the best course of action, and I understand you are under a lot of stress, but I don’t think this characterization is an effective way of shifting people towards your point of view.
This is so out of touch with the realities of opinion change. It sounds smart and it lets EAs and rationalists keep doing what they’re doing, which is why people repeat it. This claim that we would only get one shot at a pause is asinine— pause would become more popular as an option the more people were familiar with it. It’s only the AI industry and EA that do not like the idea of pausing and pretend like they’re gonna withdraw support that we actually never had if we do something they don’t like.
The main thing we can do as a movement is gain popular support by talking about the message. There is no reliable way to “time” asks. None of that makes any sense. Honestly, most people who give this argument are industry apologists who just want you feel out of your league if you do anything against their interests. Hardware overhang was the same shit.
Ah, the EA “fuck you”.
I see, so other people (😉) might not agree with me bc of how I say it, and rather than it being their responsibility to seek truth, that’s my fault for not behaving the way you— oops, I mean “they”— like. It’s just ineffective, so nobody listening has any responsibilities and should probably go back to working at an AI company.
Hey Holly, it sounds like you’re frustrated by how people in EA are engaging with the idea of a pause. I’m sure that’s really hard, and I’m sure I don’t know even a fraction of what you’ve gone through. I know you’re doing this advocacy work because you care a lot, and I really appreciate that. You know that I personally support your work.
However, I’m worried that this thread is becoming unproductive, and risks making the Forum feel like less of a safe space[1].
In particular, my concern is that you are criticizing @Denkenberger🔸 directly in a way that appears to come from nowhere. @Denkenberger🔸 doesn’t say anything about their personal views on a pause before you respond with:
In my opinion, this sort of accusation without evidence erodes the Forum’s ability to be a safe community space for important discussions. If it’s the case that I’m missing some context and you have personal beef with @Denkenberger🔸, then I don’t think the Forum is the appropriate place to hash that out.
To be clear, I think the following are broadly fine and often good (assuming adherence to our Forum norms):
Criticizing ideas or actions that you disagree with, or see flaws in
Accusing a person or org of doing harm when you have some evidence to back that up
Sharing your feelings, including feelings of hurt and frustration
Holding those in power accountable
Flagging issues about the EA community, especially those that you think others are too afraid to flag
Flagging when someone is potentially not being truth-seeking, or is otherwise not following Forum norms (ideally in a kind way because our norms are unusual compared to the rest of the internet)
So I’d like to suggest that you take a step back from this thread. If you find yourself getting frustrated at others on the Forum elsewhere, I’d suggest taking a break from those as well.
You’ve written some of the best posts on this Forum, and the Forum Team greatly values your contributions. At the same time, I also think it’s important that the Forum continues to be a productive discussion space.
A relevant quote from our “Moderation principles” post:
I think you hit the nail on the head— this forum is not a safe space for me. Like you said, I’m an all-time top poster, and yet I get snobby discouragement on everything I write since I started working on Pause, with the general theme that advocacy is not smart enough for EAs (and a secondary theme of wanting to work for AI companies).
This is a serious problem given what the EA Forum was supposed to be. It’s not a problem with following your rules for polite posts, but it’s against something more important— the purpose of the Forum and of the EA community.
But, I’ve clearly reached the end of my rope, and since I’d like to keep my account and be able to post new stuff here, I’ll just stop commenting.
I see that you are getting some downvotes, and while I disagree with this comment in particular I’m glad that you are there in the arena strongly pushing your vision of the good :)