Starts producing what? 2. What real-world experience, and how will it be relevant to his SIAI work? 3. Yup, that’s possible. See below. 4. Just like they do for all the other people who do stellar work as software developers, you mean?
I think #3 merits a closer look, since indeed it’s one of the few ways that your proposal could have a positive outcome. So let’s postulate, for the sake of argument, that indeed Eliezer’s skills in software development are not particularly impressive and he doesn’t do terribly well in his other half-time job. So … now they fire him? Because he hasn’t performed very well in another job doing different kinds of work from what he’s doing for SIAI? Yeah, that’s a good way to do things.
It would probably be good for SIAI to fire Eliezer if he’s no good at what he’s supposed to be doing for them. But, if indeed he’s no good at that, they won’t find it out by telling him to get a job as a software engineer and seeing what salary he can make.
Yes, it’s bad that SIAI can’t easily document how much progress it’s making with existential risk reduction so that potential donors can decide whether it’s worth supporting. But Eliezer’s market-salary-as-a-generic-programmer is—obviously—not a good measure of how much progress it’s making. Thought experiment: Consider some random big-company CEO who’s being paid millions. Suppose they get bored of CEOing and take a fancy to AI, and suppose they agree to replace Eliezer at SIAI, and even to work for half his salary. In this scenario, should SIAI tell their donors: “Great news, everyone! We’ve made a huge stride towards avoiding AI-related existential risk. We just employed someone whose market salary is measured in the millions of dollars!”?
Yes, it’s bad if SIAI can’t tell whether Eliezer is actually doing work worth the salary they pay him. (My guess, incidentally, is that he is even if his actual AI-related work is of zero value, on PR grounds. But that’s a separate issue.) But measuring something to do with Eliezer that has nothing whatever to do with the value of the work he does for SIAI is not going to solve that problem.
Starts producing what? 2. What real-world experience, and how will it be relevant to his SIAI work? 3. Yup, that’s possible. See below. 4. Just like they do for all the other people who do stellar work as software developers, you mean?
I think #3 merits a closer look, since indeed it’s one of the few ways that your proposal could have a positive outcome. So let’s postulate, for the sake of argument, that indeed Eliezer’s skills in software development are not particularly impressive and he doesn’t do terribly well in his other half-time job. So … now they fire him? Because he hasn’t performed very well in another job doing different kinds of work from what he’s doing for SIAI? Yeah, that’s a good way to do things.
It would probably be good for SIAI to fire Eliezer if he’s no good at what he’s supposed to be doing for them. But, if indeed he’s no good at that, they won’t find it out by telling him to get a job as a software engineer and seeing what salary he can make.
Yes, it’s bad that SIAI can’t easily document how much progress it’s making with existential risk reduction so that potential donors can decide whether it’s worth supporting. But Eliezer’s market-salary-as-a-generic-programmer is—obviously—not a good measure of how much progress it’s making. Thought experiment: Consider some random big-company CEO who’s being paid millions. Suppose they get bored of CEOing and take a fancy to AI, and suppose they agree to replace Eliezer at SIAI, and even to work for half his salary. In this scenario, should SIAI tell their donors: “Great news, everyone! We’ve made a huge stride towards avoiding AI-related existential risk. We just employed someone whose market salary is measured in the millions of dollars!”?
Yes, it’s bad if SIAI can’t tell whether Eliezer is actually doing work worth the salary they pay him. (My guess, incidentally, is that he is even if his actual AI-related work is of zero value, on PR grounds. But that’s a separate issue.) But measuring something to do with Eliezer that has nothing whatever to do with the value of the work he does for SIAI is not going to solve that problem.