However, I feel I have to evaluate each of his arguments on its own merit rather than deferring to what I see as his appeal to authority (where he’s the authority)
Eliezer isn’t saying “believe me because I’m a trustworthy authority”; just the opposite. Eliezer is explicitly claiming that we’re all dead if we base our beliefs on this topic on deference, as opposed to evaluating arguments on their merits, figuring out the domain for ourselves, generating our own arguments for and against conclusions, refining our personal inside views of AGI alignment, etc.
(At least, his claim is that we need vastly, vastly more people doing that. Not every EA needs to do that, but currently we’re far below water on this dimension, on Eliezer’s model and on mine.)
Eliezer isn’t saying “believe me because I’m a trustworthy authority”; just the opposite. Eliezer is explicitly claiming that we’re all dead if we base our beliefs on this topic on deference, as opposed to evaluating arguments on their merits, figuring out the domain for ourselves, generating our own arguments for and against conclusions, refining our personal inside views of AGI alignment, etc.
(At least, his claim is that we need vastly, vastly more people doing that. Not every EA needs to do that, but currently we’re far below water on this dimension, on Eliezer’s model and on mine.)