Thanks for the information, I’ll look into this some more based on what you mentioned.
So I’m not sure what advantage you’re seeing here, because I haven’t read the books and don’t have the evidence you do. But my priors are that if you have any good ideas about how to make progress in alignment, it’s not going to be downstream of using the formalism in the books you mentioned.
I didn’t have any particular new ideas about how to make progress in alignment, but rather felt as though the framework of these books provide an interesting lens to model systems and agents that could be of interest, and subsequently prove various properties that are necessary/faborable. It’s helpful that your priors say these won’t be downstream of using the formalisms in the mentioned books; it may rather be a phenomenon of me not being adequately familiar with formal frameworks.
felt as though the framework of these books provide an interesting lens to model systems and agents that could be of interest, and subsequently prove various properties that are necessary/faborable
Your feelings might be right! I don’t have a not a strong prior, and in general I’d say that people should follow their inner compass and work on what they’re excited about. It’s very hard to convey your illegible intuitions to others, and all too easy for social pressure to squash them. Not sure what someone should really do in this situation, beyond keeping your eyes on the hard problems of alignment and finding ways to get feedback from reality on your ideas as fast as possible.
Thanks for the information, I’ll look into this some more based on what you mentioned.
I didn’t have any particular new ideas about how to make progress in alignment, but rather felt as though the framework of these books provide an interesting lens to model systems and agents that could be of interest, and subsequently prove various properties that are necessary/faborable. It’s helpful that your priors say these won’t be downstream of using the formalisms in the mentioned books; it may rather be a phenomenon of me not being adequately familiar with formal frameworks.
Your feelings might be right! I don’t have a not a strong prior, and in general I’d say that people should follow their inner compass and work on what they’re excited about. It’s very hard to convey your illegible intuitions to others, and all too easy for social pressure to squash them. Not sure what someone should really do in this situation, beyond keeping your eyes on the hard problems of alignment and finding ways to get feedback from reality on your ideas as fast as possible.
Good that you mention this, will keep that mind!