If you were to say tomorrow “I’ve been lying about the whole AI programmer thing; I actually live in my parents’ basement and have never done anything worthwhile in any non-rationality field in my entire life,” then would I have to revise my opinion that you’re a very good rationality teacher? Would I have to deny having learned really valuable things from you?
But the fact that reality doesn’t disentangle this way, is in a sense the whole point—it’s not a coincidence that things are the way they are.
If we get far enough to have external real-world standards like those you’re describing, then yes we can toss the “secret identity” thing out the window, so long as we don’t have the problem of most good students wanting only to become rationality instructors themselves as opposed to going into other careers (but a teacher who raised their students this way would suffer on the ‘accomplished students’ metric, etc.). But on the other hand I still suspect that the instructors with secret identities would be revealed to do better.
I’ve never seen anything from Eliezer that proves that he’s done anything at all of value except be a rationality teacher. I know of two general criteria by which to judge someone’s output in a field that I am not a part of:
1) Academic prestige (degrees, publications, etc.)
and
2) Economic output (making things that people will pay money for).
Eliezer’s institution doesn’t sell anything, so he’s a loss on part 2. He doesn’t have a Ph.D or any academic papers I can find, so he’s a loss on part 1, as well. Can SIAI demonstrate that it’s done anything except beg for money, put up a nice-looking website, organize some symposiums, and write some very good essays?
To be honest, I’d say that his output matches the job description of “philosopher” than “engineer” or “scientist”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Many works that fall broadly under the metric of philosophy have been tremendously influential. For example, Adam Smith was a philosopher.
Eliezer seems to have talents both for seeing through confusion (and its cousin, bullshit) and for being able to explain complicated things in ways that people can understand. In other words, he’d be an amazing university professor. I just haven’t seen him prove that he can do anything else.
EY has a lengthy article in this volume if that counts as academic.
As has been said, being a theoretician seems distinct enough from teaching that it should count as a day job. I still view Eliezer as more of a teacher than a theoretician, but I don’t think Eliezer is saying teachers don’t have to be completely divorced from their subject in their day job to avoid affective death spirals.
Are you saying that teachers who don’t externally practice the thing they’re teaching won’t make good teachers? Or that they’re not worthy of respect at all? If the former, I agree with Yvain and others that we have better metrics for determining teacher quality. If the latter, I’m not sure why this would be the case. The comparison to literary critics doesn’t answer that question; it just accesses our assumed cached thoughts about literary critics. What’s the problem with people wanting to be literary critics?
The post proposes a required formula for respect, but it never explains what quantity that formula intends to maximize. What’s the goal here?
But the fact that reality doesn’t disentangle this way, is in a sense the whole point—it’s not a coincidence that things are the way they are.
If we get far enough to have external real-world standards like those you’re describing, then yes we can toss the “secret identity” thing out the window, so long as we don’t have the problem of most good students wanting only to become rationality instructors themselves as opposed to going into other careers (but a teacher who raised their students this way would suffer on the ‘accomplished students’ metric, etc.). But on the other hand I still suspect that the instructors with secret identities would be revealed to do better.
I’ve never seen anything from Eliezer that proves that he’s done anything at all of value except be a rationality teacher. I know of two general criteria by which to judge someone’s output in a field that I am not a part of:
1) Academic prestige (degrees, publications, etc.) and 2) Economic output (making things that people will pay money for).
Eliezer’s institution doesn’t sell anything, so he’s a loss on part 2. He doesn’t have a Ph.D or any academic papers I can find, so he’s a loss on part 1, as well. Can SIAI demonstrate that it’s done anything except beg for money, put up a nice-looking website, organize some symposiums, and write some very good essays?
To be honest, I’d say that his output matches the job description of “philosopher” than “engineer” or “scientist”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Many works that fall broadly under the metric of philosophy have been tremendously influential. For example, Adam Smith was a philosopher.
Eliezer seems to have talents both for seeing through confusion (and its cousin, bullshit) and for being able to explain complicated things in ways that people can understand. In other words, he’d be an amazing university professor. I just haven’t seen him prove that he can do anything else.
Yes—in fact, the only thing that leads me to suspect that EY and SIAI are doing anything worth doing is the quality of EY’s writings on rationality.
EY has a lengthy article in this volume if that counts as academic.
As has been said, being a theoretician seems distinct enough from teaching that it should count as a day job. I still view Eliezer as more of a teacher than a theoretician, but I don’t think Eliezer is saying teachers don’t have to be completely divorced from their subject in their day job to avoid affective death spirals.
Right. Our difference of opinion here is clearly nontrivial. I’ll put it on the list of things to write posts about.
Are you saying that teachers who don’t externally practice the thing they’re teaching won’t make good teachers? Or that they’re not worthy of respect at all? If the former, I agree with Yvain and others that we have better metrics for determining teacher quality. If the latter, I’m not sure why this would be the case. The comparison to literary critics doesn’t answer that question; it just accesses our assumed cached thoughts about literary critics. What’s the problem with people wanting to be literary critics?
The post proposes a required formula for respect, but it never explains what quantity that formula intends to maximize. What’s the goal here?