For some reason, you assume that this must obviouslybe about a specific piece, when it’s not, and when there was only ever very weak evidence that it was (see EY reply to my comment below).
You complain that, if your guess is right about the specific paper (when there is no specific paper), he shouldn’t have used the word ‘recent’. In a sense, you are ignoring evidence when deciding what happened, and then blaming Eliezer for the ways in which the evidence doesn’t fit your conclusion.
Then you just… posit a hypothetical in which EY is a bumbling oaf? “Yup, response must be about a specific paper; I bet the reporter asked about a specific paper; I bet the reporter asked about a different paper altogether than the one I assume this is about, and Eliezer got confused, because wouldn’t that be funny?”
I get that you think Eliezer is out of touch, and I would appreciate it if anyone were able to comment on this post in a way that sought to demonstrate that perspective. (for this piece of EY writing in particular, something isn’t sitting quite right with me, and some discussion from others about the actual contents of the post might help surface some cruxes)
My wholly-unevidenced, kneejerk reaction to your comment was “Ah, I guess Buck is so used to mocking Eliezer in private that it just kinda leaks out of him, and he genuinely can’t tell the difference between a substantive critique of Eliezer’s view and punching down at the illiterate, bucktoothed Eliezer who lives in his head.” That’s very sad to me!
Edit: Genuinely surprised by the votes here; Buck’s comment is deeply uncharitable and wildly speculative, and makes assumptions that have just been falsified, drawing them out to the point of mockery. This is very dismaying, but pointing it out makes me ‘too combative’?
Edit 2: Did not at all mean to claim Buck mocks Eliezer in private; I have no evidence of this. I was trying to point out that his above comment is worryingly coherent with this interpretation, but I failed to weaken it sufficiently to make that clear. Changed the wording and made this edit to avoid confusion.
Given that Eliezer was responding to several different pieces, I think it would’ve been good for him to clarify this. For example, he could have started this piece with:
I stand by my belief that that ambiguity was confusing to readers. I normally wouldn’t bother to complain about ambiguity. But I think it’s particularly bad to be critical of work without being clear about what you’re criticizing, because that makes it harder for people to respond to the criticism (as occurred on this post!). For example, I think it’s good if people who read your criticisms are able to look at the works you’re criticizing.
I think it’s good manners to make it as easy as possible to find referenced work. Linking to relevant work is totally acceptable. Naming the work also works. (Naming the work incorrectly is better than nothing but I think it is bad practice.)
(In this case, Eliezer isn’t really directly criticizing the work. He’s more criticizing some interpretations of it that you might have. But I still think it’s the case that it’s good to note what work you’re responding to.)
and he genuinely can’t tell the difference between a substantive critique of Eliezer’s view and punching down at the illiterate, bucktoothed Eliezer who lives in his head
I wasn’t trying to substantively criticize Eliezer’s views here. I was just trying to criticize the ambiguity in his writing.
I did separately insinuate that Eliezer hasn’t read these papers, based on many past examples of him not reading things that are kind of long and that he’s not very interested in (e.g. here). I think this is a sort of reasonable allocation of effort from his perspective, though I do wish he would clarify it if it was true here (as he’s sometimes done in the past). If he had actually read these papers before making this post, he is welcome to chime in and say so!
I think there’s an unfortunate dynamic where people think that Eliezer pays more attention to the details of AI and AI safety research than he actually does because he thinks that the research is all stupid and hopeless (which is his prerogative, and I absolutely don’t mean to criticize him for it here).
I don’t think of myself as having a habit of mocking Eliezer in private, though maybe I do; I think that would be bad of me and I don’t want to do it. Please feel free to message me if you think I’ve been inappropriately mocking of Eliezer around you (I don’t know who you are); I’ll also message my coworkers saying that I don’t want to mock him or others. I do harshly criticize him in private/semi-private conversations, and I feel very negatively about lots of aspects of his and MIRI’s work (though I think MIRI’s influence on the world from this point is overall probably positive EV, I’m pretty unsure). I also feel very grateful to Eliezer for the massive positive impact he’s had on many aspects of my life, and the personal kindness he’s shown me. I recently had a conversation with Malo about my feelings and public conduct related to MIRI; you could ask him about that if you want.
Buck’s reply seems reasonable and I feel pretty good about it!
I do wish your first comment were more like this one (although obviously demanding that every critique were contextualized so thoroughly would be ridiculous), but I’m grateful that you unpacked this here. Thanks!
Edit: I also don’t have any evidence that contradicts your account of your own behavior, to be clear.
For some reason, you assume that this must obviously be about a specific piece, when it’s not, and when there was only ever very weak evidence that it was (see EY reply to my comment below).
You complain that, if your guess is right about the specific paper (when there is no specific paper), he shouldn’t have used the word ‘recent’. In a sense, you are ignoring evidence when deciding what happened, and then blaming Eliezer for the ways in which the evidence doesn’t fit your conclusion.
Then you just… posit a hypothetical in which EY is a bumbling oaf? “Yup, response must be about a specific paper; I bet the reporter asked about a specific paper; I bet the reporter asked about a different paper altogether than the one I assume this is about, and Eliezer got confused, because wouldn’t that be funny?”
I get that you think Eliezer is out of touch, and I would appreciate it if anyone were able to comment on this post in a way that sought to demonstrate that perspective. (for this piece of EY writing in particular, something isn’t sitting quite right with me, and some discussion from others about the actual contents of the post might help surface some cruxes)
My wholly-unevidenced, kneejerk reaction to your comment was “Ah, I guess Buck is so used to mocking Eliezer in private that it just kinda leaks out of him, and he genuinely can’t tell the difference between a substantive critique of Eliezer’s view and punching down at the illiterate, bucktoothed Eliezer who lives in his head.” That’s very sad to me!
Edit: Genuinely surprised by the votes here; Buck’s comment is deeply uncharitable and wildly speculative, and makes assumptions that have just been falsified, drawing them out to the point of mockery. This is very dismaying, but pointing it out makes me ‘too combative’?
Edit 2: Did not at all mean to claim Buck mocks Eliezer in private; I have no evidence of this. I was trying to point out that his above comment is worryingly coherent with this interpretation, but I failed to weaken it sufficiently to make that clear. Changed the wording and made this edit to avoid confusion.
Given that Eliezer was responding to several different pieces, I think it would’ve been good for him to clarify this. For example, he could have started this piece with:
(Or maybe he’s responding to some other pieces too, I’m still not sure! Do you know?)
Eliezer also didn’t clarify this when responding to Ryan’s post on X which had the same confusion. As it was, many people (apparently including me!) were empirically confused by what he was talking about!
I stand by my belief that that ambiguity was confusing to readers. I normally wouldn’t bother to complain about ambiguity. But I think it’s particularly bad to be critical of work without being clear about what you’re criticizing, because that makes it harder for people to respond to the criticism (as occurred on this post!). For example, I think it’s good if people who read your criticisms are able to look at the works you’re criticizing.
I think it’s good manners to make it as easy as possible to find referenced work. Linking to relevant work is totally acceptable. Naming the work also works. (Naming the work incorrectly is better than nothing but I think it is bad practice.)
(In this case, Eliezer isn’t really directly criticizing the work. He’s more criticizing some interpretations of it that you might have. But I still think it’s the case that it’s good to note what work you’re responding to.)
I wasn’t trying to substantively criticize Eliezer’s views here. I was just trying to criticize the ambiguity in his writing.
I did separately insinuate that Eliezer hasn’t read these papers, based on many past examples of him not reading things that are kind of long and that he’s not very interested in (e.g. here). I think this is a sort of reasonable allocation of effort from his perspective, though I do wish he would clarify it if it was true here (as he’s sometimes done in the past). If he had actually read these papers before making this post, he is welcome to chime in and say so!
I think there’s an unfortunate dynamic where people think that Eliezer pays more attention to the details of AI and AI safety research than he actually does because he thinks that the research is all stupid and hopeless (which is his prerogative, and I absolutely don’t mean to criticize him for it here).
I don’t think of myself as having a habit of mocking Eliezer in private, though maybe I do; I think that would be bad of me and I don’t want to do it. Please feel free to message me if you think I’ve been inappropriately mocking of Eliezer around you (I don’t know who you are); I’ll also message my coworkers saying that I don’t want to mock him or others. I do harshly criticize him in private/semi-private conversations, and I feel very negatively about lots of aspects of his and MIRI’s work (though I think MIRI’s influence on the world from this point is overall probably positive EV, I’m pretty unsure). I also feel very grateful to Eliezer for the massive positive impact he’s had on many aspects of my life, and the personal kindness he’s shown me. I recently had a conversation with Malo about my feelings and public conduct related to MIRI; you could ask him about that if you want.
Buck’s reply seems reasonable and I feel pretty good about it!
I do wish your first comment were more like this one (although obviously demanding that every critique were contextualized so thoroughly would be ridiculous), but I’m grateful that you unpacked this here. Thanks!
Edit: I also don’t have any evidence that contradicts your account of your own behavior, to be clear.