The timelines model didn’t get nearly as many reviews as the scenario. We shared the timelines writeup with all of the people who we shared the later drafts of the scenario with, but I think almost none of them looked at the timelines writeup.
We also asked a few people to specifically review the timelines forecasts, most notably a few FutureSearch forecasters who we then added as a final author. However, we mainly wanted them to estimate the parameter values and didn’t specifically ask them for feedback on the underlying modeling choices (though they did form some opinions, for example they liked benchmark and gaps much more than time horizon extension; also btw the superexponential plays a much smaller role in benchmarks and gaps). No one brought up the criticisms that titotal did.
In general the timelines model certainly got way less effort than the scenario, probably about 5% as much effort. Our main focus was the scenario as we think that it’s a much higher value add.
I’m been pretty surprised at to how much quality-weighted criticisms have focused on the timelines model relative to the scenario, and wish that it was more tilted toward the scenario (and also toward the takeoff model, which IMO is more important than the timelines model but has gotten much less attention). To be clear I’m still very glad that these critiques exist if the alternative is that they didn’t exist and nothing replaced them.
I suspect part of the reasons for the quality-weighted criticism of the timelines rather than the scenario:
If it is the case that you put far less effort into the timelines model than the scenario, then the timelines model is probably just worse—some of the more obvious mistakes that titotal points out probably don’t have analogies in your scenario, so its just easier to criticise the timelines model, as there is more to criticise there
In many ways, the timelines model is pretty key to the headline claim of your scenario. The other parts (scenario and takeoff) are useful, high quality contributions but in many ways are less meaningfully novel than the very aggressive timelines. Your takeoff model, for example, is well within the range of speeds considered in the community for years—indeed, it is far slower than a Yudkowskian takeoff for example. This isn’t to degrade it—the level of detail in the scenario is commendable and the quality in that respect is genuinely novel. But in terms of what the media coverage, and impact of the work, its the timelines that I suspect are the most significant
The timelines model didn’t get nearly as many reviews as the scenario. We shared the timelines writeup with all of the people who we shared the later drafts of the scenario with, but I think almost none of them looked at the timelines writeup.
We also asked a few people to specifically review the timelines forecasts, most notably a few FutureSearch forecasters who we then added as a final author. However, we mainly wanted them to estimate the parameter values and didn’t specifically ask them for feedback on the underlying modeling choices (though they did form some opinions, for example they liked benchmark and gaps much more than time horizon extension; also btw the superexponential plays a much smaller role in benchmarks and gaps). No one brought up the criticisms that titotal did.
In general the timelines model certainly got way less effort than the scenario, probably about 5% as much effort. Our main focus was the scenario as we think that it’s a much higher value add.
I’m been pretty surprised at to how much quality-weighted criticisms have focused on the timelines model relative to the scenario, and wish that it was more tilted toward the scenario (and also toward the takeoff model, which IMO is more important than the timelines model but has gotten much less attention). To be clear I’m still very glad that these critiques exist if the alternative is that they didn’t exist and nothing replaced them.
I suspect part of the reasons for the quality-weighted criticism of the timelines rather than the scenario:
If it is the case that you put far less effort into the timelines model than the scenario, then the timelines model is probably just worse—some of the more obvious mistakes that titotal points out probably don’t have analogies in your scenario, so its just easier to criticise the timelines model, as there is more to criticise there
In many ways, the timelines model is pretty key to the headline claim of your scenario. The other parts (scenario and takeoff) are useful, high quality contributions but in many ways are less meaningfully novel than the very aggressive timelines. Your takeoff model, for example, is well within the range of speeds considered in the community for years—indeed, it is far slower than a Yudkowskian takeoff for example. This isn’t to degrade it—the level of detail in the scenario is commendable and the quality in that respect is genuinely novel. But in terms of what the media coverage, and impact of the work, its the timelines that I suspect are the most significant