Peter S. Park

• Peter S. Park 14 May 2022 22:01 UTC

  −2 points

  on: “Tech com­pany sin­gu­lar­i­ties”, and steer­ing them to re­duce x-risk

  Thank you so much for this extremely important and brilliant post, Andrew! I really appreciate it.

  I completely agree that the degree to which autonomous general-capabilities research is outpacing alignment research needs to be reduced (most likely via recruitment and social opinion dynamics), and that this seems neglected relative to its importance.

  I wrote a post on a related topic recently, and it would be really great to hear what you think! (https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​juhMehg89FrLX9pTj/​​a-grand-strategy-to-recruit-ai-capabilities-researchers-into)

• Peter S. Park 13 May 2022 18:39 UTC

  1 point

  on: EA will likely get more at­ten­tion soon

  Thank you so much for this extremely important and helpful guide on EA messaging, Julia! I really appreciate it, and hope all EAs read it asap.

  Social opinion dynamics seem to have the property where some action (or some inaction) can cause EA to move into a different equilibrium, with a potentially permanent increase or decrease in EA’s outreach and influence capacity. We should therefore tread carefully.

  Unfortunately, social opinion dynamics are also extremely mysterious. Nobody knows precisely what action or what inaction possesses the risk of permanently closing some doors to additional outreach and influence. Part of the system is likely inherently unpredictable, but people are almost certainly not near the optimal level of knowledge about predicting such social opinion dynamics.

  But perhaps EA movement-builders are already using and improving a cutting-edge model of social opinion dynamics!

• Peter S. Park 12 May 2022 21:19 UTC

  8 points

  on: Bad Omens in Cur­rent Com­mu­nity Building

  Thanks so much for this extremely important and well-written post, Theo! I really appreciate it.

  My main takeaway from this post (among many takeaways!) is that EA outreach and movement-building could be significantly better. I’m not sure yet on the clear next steps, but perhaps outreach could be even more individualized and epistemically humble.

  One devil’s-advocate point on your point that “while it may be true that there are certain characteristics which predict that people are more likely to become HEAs, it does not follow that a larger EA community made up of such people would automatically be better than this one.” Despite Goodhart’s Law, I think that there is some definition of HEA such that maximizing the number of HEAs is the best practical strategy for cooperative movement-building. Having a lot of dedicated people in a cooperative group is very important, perhaps the most important factor in determining the success of the group. More complicated goals/​guidelines for movement-builders are harder to use, both for individuals and for group coordination.

• Peter S. Park 12 May 2022 20:51 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: NickFitz’s comment on: Effec­tive [Re]location

  Thanks so much for your kind words on our post, Nick! I really appreciate it.

  One of the non-governmental barriers to relocation for international folks is the general non-accessibility of relevant information. Even something as basic as finding an apartment to rent in a foreign city could present a quite high barrier (and certainly a perceived barrier) to relocation.

• Peter S. Park 11 May 2022 20:02 UTC

  1 point

  on: Tran­scripts of in­ter­views with AI researchers

  This is such an incredibly useful resource, Vael! Thank you so much for your hard work on this project.

  I really hope this project continues to go strong!

• Peter S. Park 4 May 2022 16:24 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Linch’s comment on: Should You Have Chil­dren De­spite Cli­mate Change?

  Thank you so much for this extremely helpful suggestion, Linch! I really appreciate it.

• Peter S. Park 4 May 2022 15:20 UTC

  3 points

  on: Should You Have Chil­dren De­spite Cli­mate Change?

  A thought: Especially when enabled by technology, people are very capable. In theory, a person can easily offset the negative impact of their greenhouse gas emissions and have a lot of time and resouces left over to pursue positive impact. For example, by donating a fraction of their money to carbon offsetting projects and not having a polluting lifestyle, the median American can easily have a net reducing effect on global greenhouse gas emissions throughout their lifetime. Also, I think the median person in the world can in theory achieve a net reducing effect as well, by devoting a fraction of their time and resources to planting trees (nature’s baseline technology for carbon capture).

  So perhaps the right framing isn’t “Should you have children despite climate change?” One alternative framing is: suppose you want to influence the next generation, who will either capably help the world or capably harm the world. Should you do it by parenting and influencing your own children, or by influencing other people’s children?

  I think most EAs favor the latter option, and indeed there is a compelling argument in favor of it. Humans are perhaps the only species whose primary mode of phenotypic inheritance is learning knowledge and values from group members: including not only parents, but also a lot of other people. This is why we are so adaptable and capable.

  But for EAs who derive a lot of pleasure from parenting and are high-fidelity influencers as parents (i.e., have a high guarantee of influencing their children to have similar values as them), I think parenting can be an excellent use of their time and resources. I think optimal parenting is a domain which is quite neglected by EAs, and hope that this changes moving forward.

• Peter S. Park 29 Apr 2022 16:25 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: MathiasKB’s comment on: Snakebites kill 100,000 peo­ple ev­ery year, here’s what you should know

  That makes sense! Shoes are probably more expensive than malaria nets.
  
  But it might still be a better intervention point than antivenom+improving diagnosis+increasing people’s willingness to go to the hospital.

• Peter S. Park 28 Apr 2022 20:29 UTC

  2 points

  on: Snakebites kill 100,000 peo­ple ev­ery year, here’s what you should know

  What about something they can wear on their leg to prevent the snakebite?

• Peter S. Park 28 Apr 2022 5:58 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: MaxRa’s comment on: A grand strat­egy to re­cruit AI ca­pa­bil­ities re­searchers into AI safety research

  Thank you so much for your kind words, Max! I’m extremely grateful.
  
  I completely agree that if (a big if!) we could identify and recruit AI capabilities researchers who could quickly “plug in” to the current AI safety field, and ideally could even contribute novel and promising directions for “finding structure/​good questions/​useful framing”, that would be extremely effective. Perhaps a maximally effective use of time and resources for many people.
  
  I also completely agree that experiential learning on how to talent-scout and recruit AI capabilities researchers is likely to be also helpful for recruiting for the AI safety field in general. The transfer will be quite high. (And of course, recruiting junior research talent, etc. will be “easy mode” compared to recruiting AI capabilities researchers.)

• Peter S. Park 28 Apr 2022 5:50 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: PeterSlattery’s comment on: A grand strat­egy to re­cruit AI ca­pa­bil­ities re­searchers into AI safety research

  Thank you so much for your feedback on my post, Peter! I really appreciate it.
  
  It seems like READI is doing some incredible and widely applicable work! I would be extremely excited to collaborate with you, READI, and people working in AI safety on movement-building. Please keep an eye out for a future forum post with some potential ideas on this front! We would love to get your feedback on them as well.
  
  (And thank you very much for letting me know about Vael’s extremely important write-up! It is brilliant, and I think everyone in AI safety should read it.)

• Peter S. Park 26 Apr 2022 23:59 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Arran McCutcheon’s comment on: [$20K In Prizes] AI Safety Ar­gu­ments Competition

  I think Elon Musk said it in a documentary about AI risks. (Is this correct?)

• Peter S. Park 26 Apr 2022 23:58 UTC

  1 point

  on: [$20K In Prizes] AI Safety Ar­gu­ments Competition

  Quoted from an EA forum post draft I’m working on:
  
  “Humans are currently the smartest being on the planet. This means that non-human animals are completely at our mercy. Cows, pigs, and chickens live atrocious lives in factory farms, because humans’ goal of eating meat is misaligned with these animals’ well-being. Saber-toothed tigers and mammoths were hunted to extinction, because nearby humans’ goal was misaligned with these animals’ survival.

  But what if in the future, we were not the smartest being on the planet? AI experts predict that it’s basically a coin flip whether or not the following scenario happens by year X. The scenario is that researchers at Deepmind, Google, or Facebook accidentally create an AI system that is systematically smarter than humans. If the goal of this superintelligent, difficult-to-control AI system is accidentally misaligned with human survival, humanity will go extinct. And no AI expert has yet convinced the rest of the field that there is a way to align this superintelligent AI system’s goal in a controlled, guaranteed manner.”

• Peter S. Park 23 Apr 2022 1:55 UTC

  11 points

  in reply to: Max_Daniel’s comment on: A grand strat­egy to re­cruit AI ca­pa­bil­ities re­searchers into AI safety research

  Thank you very much for the constructive criticisms, Max! I appreciate your honest response, and agree with many of your points.
  
  I am in the process of preparing a (hopefully) well-thought-out response to your comment.

• Peter S. Park 21 Apr 2022 14:51 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Jay Bailey’s comment on: A grand strat­egy to re­cruit AI ca­pa­bil­ities re­searchers into AI safety research

  Thank you so much Jay for your kind words!

  If you happen to think of any suggestions, any blind spots of the post, or any constructive criticisms, I’d be extremely excited to hear them! (Either here or in private conversation, whichever you prefer.)

• Peter S. Park 21 Apr 2022 14:44 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: Owen Cotton-Barratt’s comment on: Longter­mist EA needs more Phase 2 work

  Thanks so much for your comment, Owen! I really appreciate it.
  
  I was under the impression (perhaps incomplete!) that your definition of “phase 2” was “an action whose upside is in its impact,” and “phase 1” was “an action whose upside is in reducing uncertainty about what is the highest impact option for future actions.”
  
  I was suggesting that I think we already know that recruiting people away from AI capabilities research (especially into AI safety) has a substantially high impact, and this impact per unit of time is likely to improve with experience. So pondering without experientially trying it is worse for optimizing its impact, for reducing uncertainty.

• Peter S. Park 21 Apr 2022 2:42 UTC

  0 points

  on: Longter­mist EA needs more Phase 2 work

  The best use of time and resources (in the Phase 2 sense) is probably to recruit AI capabilities researchers into AI safety. Uncertainty is not impossible to deal with, and is extremely likely to improve from experience.

• Peter S. Park 16 Apr 2022 21:39 UTC

  2 points

  on: Beg­ging, Plead­ing AI Orgs to Com­ment on NIST AI Risk Man­age­ment Framework

  I completely agree with the urgency and the evaluation of the problem.

  In case begging and pleading doesn’t work, a complementary method is to create a prestige differential between AI safety research and AI capabilities research (i.e., like that between green-energy research and fossil fuels), with the goal of convincing people to move from the latter to the former. See my post for a grand strategy.

  How do we recruit AI capabilities researchers to transition into AI safety research? It seems that “it is relatively easy to persuade people to join AI safety in 1-on-1s.” I think it’s most likely worth brainstorming methods to scale this.

A grand strat­egy to re­cruit AI ca­pa­bil­ities re­searchers into AI safety research

• Peter S. Park 6 Apr 2022 18:15 UTC

  −2 points

  on: The Vul­tures Are Circling

  My prior is that one’s degree of EA-alignment is pretty transparent. If there are any grifters, they would probably be found out pretty quickly and we can retract funding/​cooperation from that point on.
  
  Also, people who are at a crossroads of either being EA-aligned or non-EA aligned (e.g., people who want to be a productive member of a lively and prestigious community) could be organizationally “captured” and become EA-aligned, if we maintain a high-trust, collaborative group environment.