Well, at this point I think Eliezer’s basically succeeded in that role, and my evidence for that is that people like Hawking and Musk and Gates (the “Traditional Public Intellectuals” of my post, though only Hawking really fits that label well) have started picking up the AI safety theme; they won’t be getting credit for it until it goes truly mainstream, but that’s how the early adopter thing works in this context. I don’t know much about Nick Bostrom on a strategic level, but from what I’ve read of his publications he seems to be taking a complementary approach.
But if we ignore petty stuff like exactly what labels to use, I think we largely agree. The main thing I’m trying to get across is that you need a highly specific personality to bootstrap something like FAI research into the edges of the intellectual Overton window, and that while I (strongly!) sympathize with the people frustrated by e.g. the malaria drone thing or the infamous utopian Facebook post, I think it’s important to recognize that comes from the same place that the Sequences did.
That has implications in both directions, of course.
Well, at this point I think Eliezer’s basically succeeded in that role, and my evidence for that is that people like Hawking and Musk and Gates (the “Traditional Public Intellectuals” of my post, though only Hawking really fits that label well) have started picking up the AI safety theme; they won’t be getting credit for it until it goes truly mainstream, but that’s how the early adopter thing works in this context. I don’t know much about Nick Bostrom on a strategic level, but from what I’ve read of his publications he seems to be taking a complementary approach.
But if we ignore petty stuff like exactly what labels to use, I think we largely agree. The main thing I’m trying to get across is that you need a highly specific personality to bootstrap something like FAI research into the edges of the intellectual Overton window, and that while I (strongly!) sympathize with the people frustrated by e.g. the malaria drone thing or the infamous utopian Facebook post, I think it’s important to recognize that comes from the same place that the Sequences did.
That has implications in both directions, of course.
This is the message I missed inferring from your original reply. Yes, I concur we’re in agreement.