I like that metric, but the metric I’m discussing is more:
Are they proposing clear hypotheses?
Do their hypotheses make novel testable predictions?
Are they making those predictions explicit?
So for example, looking at MIRI’s very first blog post in 2007: The Power of Intelligence. I used the first just to avoid cherry-picking.
Hypothesis: intelligence is powerful. (yes it is)
This hypothesis is a necessary precondition for what we’re calling “MIRI doom theory” here. If intelligence is weak then AI is weak and we are not doomed by AI.
Predictions that I extract:
An AI can do interesting things over the Internet without a robot body.
An AI can get money.
An AI can be charismatic.
An AI can send a ship to Mars.
An AI can invent a grand unified theory of physics.
An AI can prove the Riemann Hypothesis.
An AI can cure obesity, cancer, aging, and stupidity.
Not a novel hypothesis, nor novel predictions, but also not widely accepted in 2007. As predictions they have aged very well, but they were unfalsifiable. If 2025 Claude had no charisma, it would not falsify the prediction that an AI can be charismatic.
I don’t mean to ding MIRI any points here, relative or otherwise, it’s just one blog post, I don’t claim it supports Barnett’s complaint by itself. I mostly joined the thread to defend the concept of asymmetric falsifiability.
I like that metric, but the metric I’m discussing is more:
Are they proposing clear hypotheses?
Do their hypotheses make novel testable predictions?
Are they making those predictions explicit?
So for example, looking at MIRI’s very first blog post in 2007: The Power of Intelligence. I used the first just to avoid cherry-picking.
Hypothesis: intelligence is powerful. (yes it is)
This hypothesis is a necessary precondition for what we’re calling “MIRI doom theory” here. If intelligence is weak then AI is weak and we are not doomed by AI.
Predictions that I extract:
An AI can do interesting things over the Internet without a robot body.
An AI can get money.
An AI can be charismatic.
An AI can send a ship to Mars.
An AI can invent a grand unified theory of physics.
An AI can prove the Riemann Hypothesis.
An AI can cure obesity, cancer, aging, and stupidity.
Not a novel hypothesis, nor novel predictions, but also not widely accepted in 2007. As predictions they have aged very well, but they were unfalsifiable. If 2025 Claude had no charisma, it would not falsify the prediction that an AI can be charismatic.
I don’t mean to ding MIRI any points here, relative or otherwise, it’s just one blog post, I don’t claim it supports Barnett’s complaint by itself. I mostly joined the thread to defend the concept of asymmetric falsifiability.