(Social movements (and comms and politics) are not easy to reason about well from first principles. I think Michael is wrong to be making this particular self-sacrifice, not because he hasn’t thought carefully about AI but because he hasn’t thought carefully about hunger strikes.)
Relevantly, if any of them actually die, and if also it does not cause major change and outcry, I will probably think they made a foolish choice (where ‘foolish’ means ‘should have known in advance this was the wrong call on a majorly important decision’).
My modal guess is that they will all make real sacrifice, and stick it out for 10-20 days, then wrap up.
Follow-up: Michael Trazzi wrapped up after 7 days due to fainting twice and two doctors saying he was getting close to being in a life-threatening situation.
(Slightly below my modal guess, but also his blood glucose level dropped unusual fast.)
Sky News (#3 News Channel in the UK) ran a 5-minute segment on the Google DeepMind Hunger Strike
The linked video seems to me largely successful at raising awareness of the anti-extinction position – it is not exaggerated, it is not mocked, it is accurately described and taken seriously. I take this as evidence of the strikes being effective at their goals (interested if you disagree).
I think the main negative update about Dennis (in line with your concerns) is that he didn’t tell his family he was doing this. I think that’s quite different from the Duc story I linked above, where he made a major self-sacrifice with the knowledge and support of his community.
Yep, I’ve seen the video. Maybe a small positive update overall, because could’ve been worse?
It seems to me that you probably shouldn’t optimize for publicity for publicity’s sake, and even then, hunger strikes are not a good way.
Hunger strikes are very effective tools in some situations; but they’re not effective for this. You can raise awareness a lot more efficiently than this.
“The fears are not backed up with evidence” and “AI might improve billions of lives” is what you get when you communicate being in fear of something without focusing on the reasons why.
Yep, I basically believe this.
(Social movements (and comms and politics) are not easy to reason about well from first principles. I think Michael is wrong to be making this particular self-sacrifice, not because he hasn’t thought carefully about AI but because he hasn’t thought carefully about hunger strikes.)
Relevantly, if any of them actually die, and if also it does not cause major change and outcry, I will probably think they made a foolish choice (where ‘foolish’ means ‘should have known in advance this was the wrong call on a majorly important decision’).
My modal guess is that they will all make real sacrifice, and stick it out for 10-20 days, then wrap up.
Follow-up: Michael Trazzi wrapped up after 7 days due to fainting twice and two doctors saying he was getting close to being in a life-threatening situation.
(Slightly below my modal guess, but also his blood glucose level dropped unusual fast.)
FAO @Mikhail Samin.
Yep. Good that he stopped. Likely bad that he started.
Trazzi shared this on Twitter:
The linked video seems to me largely successful at raising awareness of the anti-extinction position – it is not exaggerated, it is not mocked, it is accurately described and taken seriously. I take this as evidence of the strikes being effective at their goals (interested if you disagree).
I think the main negative update about Dennis (in line with your concerns) is that he didn’t tell his family he was doing this. I think that’s quite different from the Duc story I linked above, where he made a major self-sacrifice with the knowledge and support of his community.
Yep, I’ve seen the video. Maybe a small positive update overall, because could’ve been worse?
It seems to me that you probably shouldn’t optimize for publicity for publicity’s sake, and even then, hunger strikes are not a good way.
Hunger strikes are very effective tools in some situations; but they’re not effective for this. You can raise awareness a lot more efficiently than this.
“The fears are not backed up with evidence” and “AI might improve billions of lives” is what you get when you communicate being in fear of something without focusing on the reasons why.
Further follow-up: Guido Reichstadter wraps up after 30 days. Impressively long! And a bit longer than I’d guessed.