Again, take the outside outside view. The kind of conversation you described only happens with people who have read HPMoR—just telling people about the fic isn’t really impressive. (Especially if we are talking about the 90+% of the population who know nothing about fanfiction.) Ditto for the Sequences, they’re only impressive after the fact. Compare this to publishing a number of papers in a mainstream journal, which is a huge status boost even to people who have never actually read the papers.
I don’t think that that kind of status converts nearly as well as establishing a niche of people who start adopting your values, and then talking to them.
Perhaps not, but Luke was using HPMoR as an example of an accomplishment that would help negate accusations of arrogance, and for the majority of “regular” people, hearing that SIAI published journal articles does that better than hearing that they published Harry Potter fanfiction.
for the majority of “regular” people, hearing that SIAI published journal articles does that better than hearing that they published Harry Potter fanfiction
The majority of “regular” people don’t know what journals are; apart from the Wall Street Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine, they mostly haven’t heard of any. If asked about journal articles, many would say, “you mean like a blog?” (if younger) or think you were talking about a diary or a newspaper (if older).
It’s actually been incredibly useful to establishing the credibility of every x-risk argument that I’ve had with people my age.
Again, take the outside outside view. The kind of conversation you described only happens with people who have read HPMoR—just telling people about the fic isn’t really impressive. (Especially if we are talking about the 90+% of the population who know nothing about fanfiction.) Ditto for the Sequences, they’re only impressive after the fact. Compare this to publishing a number of papers in a mainstream journal, which is a huge status boost even to people who have never actually read the papers.
I don’t think that that kind of status converts nearly as well as establishing a niche of people who start adopting your values, and then talking to them.
Perhaps not, but Luke was using HPMoR as an example of an accomplishment that would help negate accusations of arrogance, and for the majority of “regular” people, hearing that SIAI published journal articles does that better than hearing that they published Harry Potter fanfiction.
The majority of “regular” people don’t know what journals are; apart from the Wall Street Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine, they mostly haven’t heard of any. If asked about journal articles, many would say, “you mean like a blog?” (if younger) or think you were talking about a diary or a newspaper (if older).
They have, however, heard of Harry Potter. ;-)
You know what would be awesome, it’s if Eliezer wrote original Harry Potter to obtain funding for the SI.
Seriously, there is a plenty of people whom I would not pay to work on AI, who accomplished far more than anyone at SI, in the more relevant fields.