All of PeterSlattery's Comments + Replies

Also someone messaged me about a recent controversy that Bryan was involved in. I thought he had been exonerated but this person thought that he had still done bad things.

See: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11692609/Anti-aging-biotech-tycoon-accused-dumping-fianc-e-breast-cancer-diagnosis.html

And his response https://twitter.com/bryan_johnson/status/1734257098119356900?t=DHcSxlZ5PkxhREVJkAdXag&s=19

Worth knowing about when judging his character.

Yeah I think that's part of it. I also thought it was very interesting how he justified what he was doing as being important for the long term future given the expected emergence of superhuman AI. E.g., he is running his life by an algorithm in expectation that society might be run in a similar way.

I will definitely say that he does come across as hyper rational and low empathy in general but there's also some touching moments here where he clearly has a lot of care for his family and really doesn't want to lose them. Could all be an act of course.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. What's your evidence for this claim?

Yeah, he could be planning to donate money once his attempt to reduce our overcome mortality is resolved.

He said several times that what he's doing now is only part one of the plants so I guess there is a opportunity to withhold judgment and see what he does later.

Having said all that I don't want to come across as trusting him. I just heard the interview and was really surprised by all the EA themes which emerged and the narrative he proposed for why what he's doing is important

Thanks for the input!

I think of EA as a cluster of values and related actions that people can hold/practice to different extents. For instance, caring about social impact, seeking comparative advantage, thinking about long term positive impacts, and being concerned about existential risks including AI. He touched on all of those.

It's true that he doesn't mention donations. I don't think that discounts his alignment in other ways.

Useful to know he might not be genuine though.

Just FYI, the link at the top doesn't work for me.

Thanks for this, I appreciate that someone read everything in depth and responded. 

I feel I should say something because I defended Nonlinear (NL) in previous comments, and it feels like I am ignoring the updated evidence/debate if I don't.

I also really don’t want to get sucked in, so I will try to keep it short:

How I feel
I previously said that I was very concerned after Ben's post, then persuaded by the response from NL that they are not net negative. 

Since then, I realized that there have been more negative views expressed towards NL than I rea... (read more)

Thanks for the detailed response, I appreciate it!

Thanks for writing this, Joseph. 

Minor, but I don't really understand this claim:

Someone made a forum post about taking several months off work to hike, claiming that it was a great career decision and that they gained lots of transferable skills. I see this as LinkedIn-style clout-seeking behavior.

I am curious why you think this i) gains them clout or ii) was written with that intention? 

It seems very different to the other examples, which seem about claiming unfair competencies or levels of impact etc. 

I personally think that taking t... (read more)

If you have time, can you provide some examples of what you saw as evidence of wrongdoing? 

I feel that much of what I saw from my limited engagement was a valid refutation of the claims made. For instance, see the examples given in the post above.

There were responses to new claims and I saw those as being about making it clear that other claims, which had been made separately from Ben's post, were also false.

I did see some cases where a refutation and claim didn't exactly match, but I didn't register that as wrongdoing (which might be due to bias or n... (read more)

Thank you for explaining all of this.

If it is ok, can you please clarify what you said here because I am not sure if I properly understand it: "in our direct messages about this post prior to publication, provided a snippet of a private conversation about the ACX meetup board decision where you took a maximally broad interpretation of while I had limited ways of verifying, pressured me to add it as context to this post in a way that would have led to a substantially false statement on my part, then admitted greater confusion to a board member while saying nothing to me about the same, after which I reconfirmed with the same board member that the wording I chose was accurate to his perception."

(I do also want to clarify that Me and Ben were somewhat ironically not shared on this post in advance, and I would have left comments with evidence falsifying at least one or two of the claims)

I agree that you probably should have had the chance to review the post (noting what TracingWoodgrain has said makes me a little less certain of this, though I still believe it)

I also think that most people, myself included, would be happy to read your comments now if you want to share them.

I'll just quickly say that my experience of this saga was more like this: 

Before BP post: NL are a sort of atypical, low structure EA group, doing entrepreneurial and coordination focused work that I think is probably positive impact.
After BP post: NL are actually pretty exploitative and probably net negative overall. I'll wait to hear their response, but I doubt it will change my mind very much.
After NL post: NL are probably not exploitative. They made some big mistakes (and had bad luck) with some risks they took in hiring and working unconventional... (read more)

Thank you for putting so much effort into helping with this community issue. 

What do you think community members should do in situations similar to what Ben and Oliver believed themselves to be in: where a community member believes that some group is causing a lot of harm to the community, and it is important to raise awareness?

Should they do a similar investigation, but better or more fairly? Should they hire a professional? Should we elect a group (e.g., the CEA community health team (or similar)) to do these sorts of investigation? 

Here is what I eventually extracted and will share, just in case it's useful. 

**★★★ (RP DG) By what year will at least 15% of patents granted in the US be for designs generated primarily via AI? Reasons for inclusion: both an early sign that AI might be able to design dangerous technology and an indicator that AIs will be economically useful to deploy across diverse industries. Question resolves according to the best estimate by the [resolution council].

**★★★ (UF RP) How long will be the gap between the first creation of an AI which could automate 65%... (read more)

Thank you.

Thanks. A sympathetic disagree from me. I think that knowing what specific people think is signal not noise. Who thinks what is often some of the most important information to communicate.

If you know I generally agree with you and support you you are much more likely to talk to me or to collaborate on projects etc. The converse is true if you know I disagree with you about many things. You don't get that information from my votes.

Fair but to be clear, this occurred, and usually occurs, before I had any upvotes.

I am not sure who, if anyone, will read this, but please stop downvoting my supportive posts mystery person(s), or at least explain your logic for doing so. 

As I understand, commenting on things to express enthusiasm/offer support is a good norm. This is a forum and lots of people put effort into posting things and want engagement and support from their posts (amongst other things). 

I certainly do. Feel free to comment on my posts saying anything supportive at any time, no matter how trite. I will always prefer it over you saying nothing at all, ... (read more)

I want to share the following, while expecting that it will probably be unpopular. 

I feel many people are not being charitable enough to Nonlinear here. 

I have only heard good things about Nonlinear, outside these accusations. I know several people who have interacted with them - mainly with Kat - and had good experiences. I know several people who deeply admire her. I have interacted with Kat occasionally, and she was helpful. I have only read good things about Emerson. 

As far as I can tell from this and everything I know/have read, it seem... (read more)

Well done! I am excited to see this, and I wish you the best of luck.

Thanks for this. If easy, can you please curate your suggested questions in a spreadsheet so that I can filter them by priority and type? If you do this, I will share with at least two academics and labs who might do some of the research desired. I may do so anyway, but at the moment, it probably won't be something that they will find time to read unless I can refer them to the parts that are most immediately relevant.

I'll also just quickly say that I am still somewhat conflicted about how to interpret the threat of legal action made by NL. On one hand, that seems extreme and a very bad signal for an EA organisation. 

On the other hand, as we see here, someone publishing a lot of (in your view) false information about your organisation is extremely harmful and time-consuming to those who are invested in that organisation. It does irreparable damage to reputations and trust.

So this does seem like an exceptional circumstance where you might consider exceptional action... (read more)

One lesson I see in this saga that we, as a community, and hopefully as a society, should be more aware of the fact that accusations are sometimes false and a little slower to pass judgement or react to them. 

I think that EAs are particularly vulnerable to a sort of 'moral hazard' of being especially receptive to perceived victims; many of us are empathetic people who feel strong moral obligations to help others. In this case, I can imagine Ben feeling a strong need or even obligation to do something and acting according. If so, what he did was actually very admirable, even if it turns out to have been misguided in hindsight.

[Third edit to add my current position on 22/12/23]

I said below that I would read the arguments from both sides and then make a final decision. I haven't done that because I didn't have time, and it didn't feel like high value. Especially in light of later posts and comments by people who are better qualified. I feel that it is still better (or at least closer to keeping my prior commitment) to state my current position for future readers than to not say anything further. With that in mind, this (copied from elsewhere) is where I ended up:

Before BP post: N... (read more)

Thanks for writing this up!

Thank you for this, Ren! I really appreciate it.

One tip I would suggest is to consider trying to find template(s) to follow for any new research project. That is, try to find one or more papers which address the same topic and/or use the same method as your paper, before you start on the paper. The best case is if the templates are published in the journal/outlet you are targeting. 

When you have templates, use them to guide and simplify the production of your paper. For instance, this might be by closely following the method, structure, style of diagr... (read more)

Is this true GWWC? I didn't realise that sacrificed income counted.

Thank you for sharing. This felt very personally relevant. I also haven't taken the pledge. I very nearly did in 2016. I go back on forth on whether and when I should take it. There are so many considerations at play. 

How much am I willing/able to sacrifice my wealth and financial security alongside sacrifices made for my direct work? Would/will I have as much direct impact without my savings/passive income potential? I'd be more risk-averse and less likely to address 'funding market failures'. Could I give more and give better later on that now? How ... (read more)

Just saw this from @soroushjp - it seems very relevant.

The vast majority of academic contributions get read by approximately no one. 

Academia has benefits, but reaching a larger audience is not one of them, as far as I can tell (there are of course exceptions and some publications are much better suited for being published in a journal than a blogpost, but by and large academia does not have a good way of actually driving readership).

I agree that most academic research is a bad ROI but I find that a lot of this sort of 'nobody reads research' commentary is equating reads with citations which seems complet... (read more)

Thank you for this. I found it very helpful, for instance, because it gave me some insight into which audiences are currently perceived as being most valuable to engage by leaders in the AI safety and governance communities.

As I mentioned in my series of posts about AI safety movement building, I would like to see a larger and more detailed version of this survey.

Without going into too much detail, I basically want more uncertainty reducing and behavior prompting information. Information that I think will help to coordinate the broader AI safety community ... (read more)

Yeah, I think that might be one reason it isn't done. I personally think that it is probably somewhat important for the community to understand itself better (e.g., the relative progress and growth in different interests/programs/geographies). Especially for people in the community who are community builders, recruiters, founders, etc. I also recognise that it might not be seen as priority for various reasons or risky for other reasons and I haven't thought a lot about it. 

Regardless, if people who have data about the community that they don't want to... (read more)

My uncertainties were mainly related to questions like how FTX had affected the trajectory of the community, size of pledge programs, and growth of AI relative to other areas of EA. But also around broader community understanding, like which programs are bigger, growing faster, better to recommend people to etc.

Thanks, I didn't know about the dashboard or had forgotten about it. Very helpful.

Short of doing something like this again, a simple annual post that reminds people this dashboard exists a and summarises what it has/shows, could get a lot of the value of the bigger analysis with a lot less effort. I imagine that a lot of people don't know about the dashboard and a lot of new people won't know next year.  

Thank you for this Angelina! It is extremely informative and has given me many useful updates about the size and trajectory of EA and its programs. It has also resolved some uncertainties which helps with my motivation. I expect that many readers will have a similar experience.

I would like to see more of this sort of monitoring in the future. Do you plan to do a similar analysis next year?

Thank you for all of this work. I really appreciate it. 

The process of writing this post has only strengthened my conviction about an issue I’ve previously noted: I believe the community should assign responsibility to, and funding for, one or more people or organizations to conduct and disseminate this sort of high-level analysis of community growth metrics. I honestly find it baffling that measuring the growth of EA and reporting findings back to the community isn’t someone’s explicit job.

I completely agree with this and have made several ... (read more)

Thanks for writing this!

Lessons from the social and behavioral sciences can and should be adapted to promote proactive biorisk management. For example, literature on social norms, persuasion, attitude change, and habit formation could be used to design and test behavior-change interventions. The bar is low; researchers have not rigorously tested interventions to change life scientists' proactive BRM practices. Funders should support social scientists and biorisk experts to partner with life scientists on programs of applied research that start with intervi

(Commenting here in addition to your post)

Thanks for this! I appreciate the write-up. Just wanted to quickly share that tried the EEM but eventually moved to a 'Must, Should, Could' system like here. I use this on Google Tasks and other task management systems. Depending on the system I use a number or title to indicate the class of task. So far it has worked well for me. Of course different things will work for different people!

Thanks for this! I appreciate the write-up. Just wanted to quickly share that tried the EEM but eventually moved to a 'Must, Should, Could' system like here. I use this on Google Tasks and other task management systems. Depending on the system I use a number or title to indicate the class of task. So far it has worked well for me. Of course different things will work for different people!

Thanks for this! I would like someone to be funded to regularly report on the funding landscape. Ideally, I'd like periodic reports providing simple graphics like those in here. Data could be easily visualised and updated for free on Google Data Studio.

Meta point:
I think EA has a big blind spot about how information quality mediates the behavioural outcomes we want. As an example, we presumably want more people to set up EA organisations and apply to EA jobs etc. These people will care about the funding landscape when making decisions between career option... (read more)

Thanks for writing this Catherine! I am glad that things are going so well now. You are finally getting the recognition and responsibilities that you have long deserved. 
 

I had worked really hard, but I felt “EA” wasn't “supporting me”. I think this was a really unfair characterisation, but it is what it felt like at the time. Then I worried I just wasn’t very useful or worthy... In retrospect it is crazy that I updated so much on only four rejections! Many people go for tons of roles before being successful or changing their plans. I'm a bit ann

A quick and impulsive comment.

I am very sorry that this happened to you. I had a somewhat similar experience of disillusion and depression a few years ago. I eventually realised that it was because my life was deeply imbalanced at that time: I focused on and valued work too much and I didn't prioritise my wellbeing and happiness sufficiently. 

Five years later, I feel happier and more productive that I have ever been. I now feel that I needed my burnout to see the error of my ways and develop a better mentality and lifestyle (although I wish it were no... (read more)

Really glad to see this is happening! In terms of questions, it might be easiest if you share a draft of the planned questions so that people can see what is already in there and what seems in scope to include. My desire to share my ideas for specific questions is hindered by the concern that it will be a wasted effort.

One option is to share a spreadsheet of potential questions with a relevant audience/here and ask people to indicate the X (e.g., 5) questions that are of most and least interest, and/or suggest changes or new questions.

Some general thoughts... (read more)

Revisiting this to share with someone and wanted to mention that I probably wouldn't use Mailer Lite to create a newsletter now. Instead, I would probably use Substack.

I really appreciate that you took the time to provide such a detailed response to these arguments. I want to say this pretty often when on the forum, and maybe I should do it more often! 

Thanks Christian! 

Great work, I am really excited to see this! Wanted to add that my personal experience (particularly at Ready Research when we briefly focused on trying to provide research and publication experience) has given me the impression that there is a massive demand for researchers and research training but insufficient resources and training. In a sense doing and reading research is at the heart of nearly all EA activities and almost universally useful.

Thanks for sharing, will watch!

Thanks for writing this - it was useful to read the pushbacks! 

As I said below, I want more synthesis of these sorts of arguments. I know that some academic groups are preparing literature reviews of the key arguments for and against AGI risk.

I really think that we should be doing that for ourselves as a community and to make sure that we are able to present busy smart people with more compelling content than a range of arguments spread across many different forum posts. 

I don't think that that is going to cut it for many people in the policy space.

Thanks for writing this. I appreciate the effort and sentiment. My quick and unpolished thoughts are below. I wrote this very quickly, so feel free to critique.

The TLDR is that I think that this is good with some caveats but also that we need more work on our ecosystem to be able to do outreach (and everything else) better.

I think we need a better AI Safety movement to properly do and benefit from outreach work. Otherwise, this and similar posts for outreach/action are somewhat like a call to arms without the strategy, weapons and logistics structure neede... (read more)