Nice post! I agree with ~everything here. Parts that felt particularly helpful:
There are even more reasons why paraphrasing is great than I thought—good reminder to be doing this more often
The way you put this point was v crisp and helpful: “Empirically, there’s a lot of smart people who believe different and contradictory things! It’s impossible for all of them to be right, so you must disagree with some of them. Internalising that you can do this is really important for being able to think clearly”
The importance of “how much feedback do they get from the world” in deferring intelligently
One thing I disagree with: the importance of forming inside views for community epistemic health. I think it’s pretty important. E.g. I think that ~2 years ago, the arguments for the longterm importance of AGI safety were pretty underdeveloped; that since then lots more people have come out with their insidee views about it; and that now the arguments are in much better shape.
Also, nitpick, but I find the “inside view” a more confusing and jargony way of just saying “independent impressions” (okay, also jargon to some extent, but closer to plain English), which also avoids the problem you point out: inside view is not the opposite of the Tetlockian sense of outside view (and the other ambiguities with outside view that another commenter pointed out).
The complaint that it’s confusing jargon is fair. Though I do think the Tetlock sense + phrase inside view captures something important—my inside view is what feels true to me, according to my personal best guess and internal impressions. Deferring doesn’t feel true in the same way, it feels like I’m overriding my beliefs, not like how they world is.
This mostly comes under the motivation point—maybe, for motivation, inside views matter but independent impressions don’t? And people differ on how they feel about the two?
I’m still confused about the distinction you have in mind between inside view and independent impression (which also have the property that they feel true to me)?
Or do you have no distinction in mind, but just think that the phrase “inside view” captures the sentiment better?
One thing I disagree with: the importance of forming inside views for community epistemic health. I think it’s pretty important. E.g. I think that ~2 years ago, the arguments for the longterm importance of AGI safety were pretty underdeveloped; that since then lots more people have come out with their insidee views about it; and that now the arguments are in much better shape.
I want to push back against this. The aggregate benefit may have been high, but when you divide it by all the people trying, I’m not convinced it’s all that high.
Further, that’s an overestimate—the actual question is more like ‘if the people who are least enthusiastic about it stop trying to form inside views, how bad is that?’. And I’d both guess that impact is fairly heavy tailed, and that the people most willing to give up are the least likely to have a major positive impact.
I’m not confident in the above, but it’s definitely not obvious
Nice post! I agree with ~everything here. Parts that felt particularly helpful:
There are even more reasons why paraphrasing is great than I thought—good reminder to be doing this more often
The way you put this point was v crisp and helpful: “Empirically, there’s a lot of smart people who believe different and contradictory things! It’s impossible for all of them to be right, so you must disagree with some of them. Internalising that you can do this is really important for being able to think clearly”
The importance of “how much feedback do they get from the world” in deferring intelligently
One thing I disagree with: the importance of forming inside views for community epistemic health. I think it’s pretty important. E.g. I think that ~2 years ago, the arguments for the longterm importance of AGI safety were pretty underdeveloped; that since then lots more people have come out with their insidee views about it; and that now the arguments are in much better shape.
Also, nitpick, but I find the “inside view” a more confusing and jargony way of just saying “independent impressions” (okay, also jargon to some extent, but closer to plain English), which also avoids the problem you point out: inside view is not the opposite of the Tetlockian sense of outside view (and the other ambiguities with outside view that another commenter pointed out).
The complaint that it’s confusing jargon is fair. Though I do think the Tetlock sense + phrase inside view captures something important—my inside view is what feels true to me, according to my personal best guess and internal impressions. Deferring doesn’t feel true in the same way, it feels like I’m overriding my beliefs, not like how they world is.
This mostly comes under the motivation point—maybe, for motivation, inside views matter but independent impressions don’t? And people differ on how they feel about the two?
I’m still confused about the distinction you have in mind between inside view and independent impression (which also have the property that they feel true to me)?
Or do you have no distinction in mind, but just think that the phrase “inside view” captures the sentiment better?
Inside view feels deeply emotional and tied to how I feel the world to be, independent impression feels cold and abstract
I want to push back against this. The aggregate benefit may have been high, but when you divide it by all the people trying, I’m not convinced it’s all that high.
Further, that’s an overestimate—the actual question is more like ‘if the people who are least enthusiastic about it stop trying to form inside views, how bad is that?’. And I’d both guess that impact is fairly heavy tailed, and that the people most willing to give up are the least likely to have a major positive impact.
I’m not confident in the above, but it’s definitely not obvious
Thanks—good points, I’m not very confident either way now