As for the others: Yeah, we seem to agree that useful work does sometimes come from philosophy, but that it mostly doesn’t, and people are better off reading statistics and AI and cognitive science, like I said. So I’m not sure there’s anything left to argue.
I’d like to emphasize, to no one in particular, that the evaluation that seems to be going on here is about whether or not reading these philosophers is useful for building a Friendly recursively self-improving artificial intelligence. While thats a good criteria for whether or not Eliezer should read them, failure to meet this criteria doesn’t render the work of the philosopher valueless (really! it doesn’t!). The question “is philosophy helpful for researching AI” is not the same as the question “is philosophy helpful for a rational person trying to better understand the world”.
I’d like to emphasize, to no one in particular, that the evaluation that seems to be going on here is about whether or not reading these philosophers is useful for building a Friendly recursively self-improving artificial intelligence. While thats a good criteria for whether or not Eliezer should read them, failure to meet this criteria doesn’t render the work of the philosopher valueless (really! it doesn’t!). The question “is philosophy helpful for researching AI” is not the same as the question “is philosophy helpful for a rational person trying to better understand the world”.