Consider the following two possible interpretations of the dialogue between Eliezer and Perplexed. First:
Alice: Aren’t superconductivity and ferromagnetism perfect examples of emergent phenomena?
Bob: Yes. So are “regular” conductivity and “regular” ferromagnetism. That’s the problem.
Alice: … what? Yeah, of course they are also examples of emergent phenomena; X being an emergent phenomenon obviously doesn’t prevent an unrelated Y from being an emergent phenomenon. What does that have to do with anything? There’s no problem here.
And second:
Alice: Aren’t superconductivity and ferromagnetism perfect examples of emergent phenomena?
Bob: Yes. So are “the lack of superconductivity” and “the lack of ferromagnetism”. That’s the problem.
Alice: Ah, I understand how those could be problematic: if both X and “the lack of X” are described the same way, then the descriptor becomes a meaningless semantic stopsign that muddies our thinking. However, on the object level in this case, the lack of superconductivity is clearly not an emergent phenomenon (and same for the other example).
I rejected the first interpretation because I trust Eliezer’s intelligence enough that I don’t think he would go for a random non sequitur that reflects nothing about the topic at hand. anonymous’s interpretation doesn’t seem to be likely to be what Eliezer intended (and even if it is the correct interpretation, it just means Eliezer was engaging in a different, yet simpler error).
Selection effect again? I don’t look at Twitter, but I did notice that Eliezer recently gave a three-hour interview and wrote a book on the subject.
Yeah, it’s probably a selection effect; the vast majority of Eliezer’s public communication comes on Twitter (unfortunate, but better than Facebook, I suppose...). Eliezer’s interview and podcast appearances, as well as (AFAIK) the book, also seem entirely geared towards a smart-but-not-technically-proficient-in-alignment audience as its primary target, in line with MIRI’s focus on public outreach to more mainstream audiences and institutions.
Nevertheless, having not read the book itself, I should suspend judgement on it for now.
Consider the following two possible interpretations of the dialogue between Eliezer and Perplexed. First:
And second:
I rejected the first interpretation because I trust Eliezer’s intelligence enough that I don’t think he would go for a random non sequitur that reflects nothing about the topic at hand. anonymous’s interpretation doesn’t seem to be likely to be what Eliezer intended (and even if it is the correct interpretation, it just means Eliezer was engaging in a different, yet simpler error).
They still do not represent an “example of the world’s leading authorities, thinkers, and scientists engaging in (supposedly) bad epistemology,” as in the example Eliezer picked out of Lord Kelvin committing a supposedly basic epistemological error. And as a result of this, the argument Eliezer was implicitly making also fails.
Yeah, it’s probably a selection effect; the vast majority of Eliezer’s public communication comes on Twitter (unfortunate, but better than Facebook, I suppose...). Eliezer’s interview and podcast appearances, as well as (AFAIK) the book, also seem entirely geared towards a smart-but-not-technically-proficient-in-alignment audience as its primary target, in line with MIRI’s focus on public outreach to more mainstream audiences and institutions.
Nevertheless, having not read the book itself, I should suspend judgement on it for now.
A lot of trouble could have been saved by distinguishing strong and weak emergence.