All of Grue_Slinky's Comments + Replies

Seconded: great post with good questions, but also soliciting anonymous recommendations (even if half-baked) seems valuable. To piggyback on John_Maxwell comment above, the EA leaders sound like they might have contradicting opinions, but it's possible they collectively agree on some more nuanced position. This could be clarified if we heard what they would actually have the movement do differently.

When I read Movement Collapse Scenarios, it struck me how EA is already pretty much on a Pareto frontier, in that I don't think we can improve anythin... (read more)

Nice! I like these kinds of synthesis posts, especially when they try to be comprehensive. One could also add:

EA as a "gap-filling gel" within the context of existing society and its altruistic tendencies (I think I heard this general idea (not the name) at Macaskill's EAG London closing remarks, but the video isn't up yet so I'm not sure and don't want to put words in his mouth). The idea is that there's already lots of work in:

  • Making people healthier
  • Reducing poverty
  • Animal welfare
  • National/international security and diplo
... (read more)

The stated reasoning for the 2nd place prize doesn't say anything about the actual substance of the paper. Surely, it didn't win that prize just based on style?

6
Aaron Gertler
4y
As I note in the post, the summaries are meant to reflect my thoughts on posts that won, which aren't always posts I personally voted for. Leopold's paper got a lot of support from other judges. I don't see myself as a strong judge of economic content, so I focused in my writeup on features I thought could contribute to good Forum discussion (clarity, authorial engagement). Keep in mind that the Prize isn't meant to reward the best research; it's meant to highlight Forum posts that exemplify what we'd like other posts to be doing. To me, that's "helping people learn something important while encouraging discussion", which implies a focus on readability and engagement. A linkpost with no summary, commentary, or discussion, even if it links to an excellent paper, wouldn't necessarily be a good Prize candidate. (That said, I'm talking about how I think of the Prize; other judges have their own criteria.)

Not sure Greg officially approves of this, but there's also an octagon-shaped common room which we typically call "The Octagon". If you want to help financially and also troll all of us to no end, you could stipulate that we rename it to some other shape, e.g. "The Triangle".

I approve. Anyone want to start the bidding?

6
Kirsten
4y
Upvoted because it makes me laugh

For reference, some other lists of AI safety problems that can be tackled by non-AI people:

Luke Muehlhauser's big (but somewhat old) list: "How to study superintelligence strategy"

AI Impacts has made several lists of research problems

Wei Dai's, "Problems in AI Alignment that philosophers could potentially contribute to"

Kaj Sotala's case for the relevance of psychology/cog sci to AI safety (I would add that Ought is currently testing the feasibility of IDA/Debate by doing psychological research)

As one of the people you mentioned (I'm flattered!), I've also been curious about this.

As for my own anecdata, I basically haven't applied yet. Technically I did apply and get declined last round, but a) it was a fairly low-effort application since I didn't really need the money then which b) I said so on the application and c) I didn't have any public posts until 2 months ago so I wasn't in your demographic and d) I didn't have any references because I don't really know many people in the research community.

I'm... (read more)

Is there some taxonomy somewhere of the ways different social/intellectual movements have collapsed (or fizzled)? Given that information, we'd certainly have to adjust for the fact that EA:

  • Exists in the 21st century specifically, with all the idiosyncrasies of the present time
  • Is kind of a hybrid between a social movement and an intellectual movement: it's based on rather nuanced ideas, is aimed at the highly-educated, and has a definite academic component (compare mainstream conservatism/socialism with postmodernism/neoliberalism)

But still, I'd guess there's potentially a lot of value in looking at the outside view.

And it looks like the prize goes to PeterMcCluskey's comment, which at the current time has 33 votes, the next highest being a tie with 21.

FYI people are allowed/encouraged to defend the Hotel here, but I'm mainly interested in seeing critiques so that is what I'm financially incentivizing. I don't personally intend to get into the object-level any more than I did above (unless asked to clarify something).