That sucks you got your hopes up but nobody got back to you.
Regarding getting back to people, I agree it’s sometimes pretty disruptive when someone says they will and then don’t. At the same time, I don’t think that most of civilization has still figured out how to reliably respond to all the emails that they are supposed to, even important work ones? Most competent and reliable people I know are not on top of their email (and even now just thinking about this I opened my email and replied to an email I’m two weeks late on). I don’t think it’s as costly or unethical as breaking a promise.
“At this point, I no longer felt that I could rely on rationalists’ help to get out of the country.” ← Alas, but not that I disagree.
I have some sense reading this that you put MIRI in the same bucket as a MANGA companies (my new name for ‘FAANG’), in terms of what to expect operationally. I think most people don’t have a good bucket for how much smaller organizations work, and that leads you to say things like “why does it take a week to grade a multiple choice quiz?” and why they might still have old job pages up. In small orgs, one person is responsible for everything that in larger orgs many people do, and so many thinks just don’t get done on the same time scales. (I think that’s fine.)
I guess I’ll go read some of the linked threads on metahonesty. [Done.] Seems fine to be creeped about the notion of metahonesty as an emotional reaction, though I personally think the semi-autistic desire to reason explicitly about norms and when to be dishonest is valuable and worthwhile, though I agree it can be unsettling and sometimes lead someone to unwise and unethical choices.
Actually, I spent a while confused about how this related to the first part of the post (“What happened”). My guess you think that Buck lied to you and that rationalists would say “that’s fine as long as he would’ve also openly explained he would lie in that situation”, and that’s what you’re arguing against. I think that’s not what many rationalists would say, they’d say “that sucks that he didn’t get back to you. it sounds like the MIRI hiring process is fairly inconsistent in its work”. I think they’d agree that this was an instance of someone not modeling-themselves very accurately, but also that it’s not a surprising level of bad self-modeling, which itself makes it less costly.
To me, the metahonesty thing feels “related in topic” but not “upstream” of being unreliable in getting back to potential hires. Perhaps you disagree.
By the way, if you end up as part of the scholars program in SERI MATS, then I am currently the person putting together office space for you in Berkeley at the Lightcone Offices. I’ll be making sure the office can support you and the other scholars do your work, so maybe see you then :)
Added: This whole thread has helped remind me to get back on top of my emails and try another round of inbox zero. Thanks for that :D
I have some sense reading this that you put MIRI in the same bucket as a MANGA companies (my new name for ‘FAANG’), in terms of what to expect operationally.
That’s a pretty amusing comparison because MANGA companies are also notorious for (despite all the supposed professionalism, tooling, high volume, and fulltime specialists involved in one of the most important & limiting-step things they do) hiring processes which dick around people, tell them wrong outdated things about immigrations or what they would be working on, require many rounds, and wind up wasting their time and just leave them hanging for months or ghosting them in the end. Lots of bellyaching on HN & elsewhere about this. (Should this be taken as a defense or a criticism of MIRI’s ops...?)
I don’t believe that this is explained by MIRI just forgetting, because I brought attention to myself in February 2021. The Software Engineer job ad was unchanged the whole time, after my post they updated it to say that the hiring is slowed down by COVID. (Sometime later, it was changed to say to send a letter to Buck, and he will get back to you after the pandemic.) Slowed down… by a year? If your hiring takes a year, you are not hiring. MIRI’s explanation is that they couldn’t hire me for a year because of COVID, and I don’t understand how could that be? Maybe some people get sick, or you need time to switch to remote working, but I don’t see how does this delays you more than a couple of months. Maybe they don’t give visas during COVID, then why not just say that. And they hired 3 other people in the meanwhile, proving they were capable of hiring.
I formed a different theory in spring 2020: COVID explains at most 2 months of this, it is mostly an excuse. MIRI just does not need programmers, what they want is people with new ideas. My theory predicted that they will not resume hiring programmers once the pandemic is over, and that they will never get back to me. MIRI’s explanation predicted the opposite. Then all my predictions came true. This is why I have trouble believing what MIRI told me.
And this is why I started wondering if I can trust them. It seemed relevant that MIRI has mislead people for PR reasons before. Metahonesty was used as a reason why an employee should’ve trusted them anyway. I explained in the post why I think that couldn’t work. The relevance to hiring is that having such a norm in place reduces my trust. I wouldn’t be offended if someone lied to a Nazi officer, or, for that matter, slashed their tires. But California isn’t actually occupied by Nazis, and if I heard that a group of researchers in California had tire-slashing policies, I’d feel alarmed.
I agree that it is hard to stay on top of all emails. But if the system of getting back to candidates is unreliable, it’s better to reject a candidate you can’t hire this month. If I’m rejected, I can reapply half a year later. If I’m told to wait for them, and I reapply anyway, the implication is that either I can’t follow instructions, or I think the company is untrustworthy or incompetent (and then why am I applying?). That could keep a candidate from reapplying forever.
A few quick impressions:
That sucks you got your hopes up but nobody got back to you.
Regarding getting back to people, I agree it’s sometimes pretty disruptive when someone says they will and then don’t. At the same time, I don’t think that most of civilization has still figured out how to reliably respond to all the emails that they are supposed to, even important work ones? Most competent and reliable people I know are not on top of their email (and even now just thinking about this I opened my email and replied to an email I’m two weeks late on). I don’t think it’s as costly or unethical as breaking a promise.
“At this point, I no longer felt that I could rely on rationalists’ help to get out of the country.” ← Alas, but not that I disagree.
I have some sense reading this that you put MIRI in the same bucket as a MANGA companies (my new name for ‘FAANG’), in terms of what to expect operationally. I think most people don’t have a good bucket for how much smaller organizations work, and that leads you to say things like “why does it take a week to grade a multiple choice quiz?” and why they might still have old job pages up. In small orgs, one person is responsible for everything that in larger orgs many people do, and so many thinks just don’t get done on the same time scales. (I think that’s fine.)
I guess I’ll go read some of the linked threads on metahonesty. [Done.] Seems fine to be creeped about the notion of metahonesty as an emotional reaction, though I personally think the semi-autistic desire to reason explicitly about norms and when to be dishonest is valuable and worthwhile, though I agree it can be unsettling and sometimes lead someone to unwise and unethical choices.
Actually, I spent a while confused about how this related to the first part of the post (“What happened”). My guess you think that Buck lied to you and that rationalists would say “that’s fine as long as he would’ve also openly explained he would lie in that situation”, and that’s what you’re arguing against. I think that’s not what many rationalists would say, they’d say “that sucks that he didn’t get back to you. it sounds like the MIRI hiring process is fairly inconsistent in its work”. I think they’d agree that this was an instance of someone not modeling-themselves very accurately, but also that it’s not a surprising level of bad self-modeling, which itself makes it less costly.
To me, the metahonesty thing feels “related in topic” but not “upstream” of being unreliable in getting back to potential hires. Perhaps you disagree.
By the way, if you end up as part of the scholars program in SERI MATS, then I am currently the person putting together office space for you in Berkeley at the Lightcone Offices. I’ll be making sure the office can support you and the other scholars do your work, so maybe see you then :)
Added: This whole thread has helped remind me to get back on top of my emails and try another round of inbox zero. Thanks for that :D
That’s a pretty amusing comparison because MANGA companies are also notorious for (despite all the supposed professionalism, tooling, high volume, and fulltime specialists involved in one of the most important & limiting-step things they do) hiring processes which dick around people, tell them wrong outdated things about immigrations or what they would be working on, require many rounds, and wind up wasting their time and just leave them hanging for months or ghosting them in the end. Lots of bellyaching on HN & elsewhere about this. (Should this be taken as a defense or a criticism of MIRI’s ops...?)
I don’t believe that this is explained by MIRI just forgetting, because I brought attention to myself in February 2021. The Software Engineer job ad was unchanged the whole time, after my post they updated it to say that the hiring is slowed down by COVID. (Sometime later, it was changed to say to send a letter to Buck, and he will get back to you after the pandemic.) Slowed down… by a year? If your hiring takes a year, you are not hiring. MIRI’s explanation is that they couldn’t hire me for a year because of COVID, and I don’t understand how could that be? Maybe some people get sick, or you need time to switch to remote working, but I don’t see how does this delays you more than a couple of months. Maybe they don’t give visas during COVID, then why not just say that. And they hired 3 other people in the meanwhile, proving they were capable of hiring.
I formed a different theory in spring 2020: COVID explains at most 2 months of this, it is mostly an excuse. MIRI just does not need programmers, what they want is people with new ideas. My theory predicted that they will not resume hiring programmers once the pandemic is over, and that they will never get back to me. MIRI’s explanation predicted the opposite. Then all my predictions came true. This is why I have trouble believing what MIRI told me.
And this is why I started wondering if I can trust them. It seemed relevant that MIRI has mislead people for PR reasons before. Metahonesty was used as a reason why an employee should’ve trusted them anyway. I explained in the post why I think that couldn’t work. The relevance to hiring is that having such a norm in place reduces my trust. I wouldn’t be offended if someone lied to a Nazi officer, or, for that matter, slashed their tires. But California isn’t actually occupied by Nazis, and if I heard that a group of researchers in California had tire-slashing policies, I’d feel alarmed.
I agree that it is hard to stay on top of all emails. But if the system of getting back to candidates is unreliable, it’s better to reject a candidate you can’t hire this month. If I’m rejected, I can reapply half a year later. If I’m told to wait for them, and I reapply anyway, the implication is that either I can’t follow instructions, or I think the company is untrustworthy or incompetent (and then why am I applying?). That could keep a candidate from reapplying forever.
oooh