I’m very confused why you think that such research should be done publicly, and why you seem to think it’s not being done privately.
I don’t think the article implies this:
Research should be done publicly
The article states: “We especially encourage researchers to share their strategic insights and considerations in write ups and blog posts, unless they pose information hazards.” Which means: share more, but don’t share if you think there are possible negative consequences of it. Though I guess you could mean that it’s very hard to tell what might lead to negative outcomes. This is a good point. This is why we (Convergence) is prioritizing research on information hazard handling and research shaping considerations.
it’s not being done privately
The article isn’t saying strategy research isn’t being done privately. What it is saying is that we need more strategy research and should increase investment into it.
Given the first sentence, I’m confused as to why you think that “strategy research” (writ large) is going to be valuable, given our fundamental lack of predictive ability in most of the domains where existential risk is a concern.
We’d argue that to get better predictive ability, we need to do strategy research. Maybe you’re saying the article makes it looks like we are recommending any research that looks like strategy research? This isn’t our intention.
Glad to hear that you aren’t recommending strategy research in general—because that’s what it looked like.
And yes, I think it’s incredibly hard to make sure we’re not putting effort into efforts with negative expected value, and I think that attention hazards are critical, and are the biggest place where I think strategy research has the potential to increase risks rather than ameliorate them. (Which is exactly why I’m confused that anyone would suggest that more such research should be done publicly and/or shared. And it’s why I don’t think that a more detailed object level discussion makes sense here, in public.)
I don’t think the article implies this:
The article states: “We especially encourage researchers to share their strategic insights and considerations in write ups and blog posts, unless they pose information hazards.”
Which means: share more, but don’t share if you think there are possible negative consequences of it.
Though I guess you could mean that it’s very hard to tell what might lead to negative outcomes. This is a good point. This is why we (Convergence) is prioritizing research on information hazard handling and research shaping considerations.
The article isn’t saying strategy research isn’t being done privately. What it is saying is that we need more strategy research and should increase investment into it.
We’d argue that to get better predictive ability, we need to do strategy research. Maybe you’re saying the article makes it looks like we are recommending any research that looks like strategy research? This isn’t our intention.
Glad to hear that you aren’t recommending strategy research in general—because that’s what it looked like.
And yes, I think it’s incredibly hard to make sure we’re not putting effort into efforts with negative expected value, and I think that attention hazards are critical, and are the biggest place where I think strategy research has the potential to increase risks rather than ameliorate them. (Which is exactly why I’m confused that anyone would suggest that more such research should be done publicly and/or shared. And it’s why I don’t think that a more detailed object level discussion makes sense here, in public.)