Yes, I wrote that in the review. I think that they made the wrong choice because that is not how most people will consume the content. Do you happen to have a good argument why the book proper couldn’t be 20% longer to better make their case?
Do you happen to have a good argument why the book proper couldn’t be 20% longer to better make their case?
I think there’s a curve of how many people pick up the book at all that depends on length. I didn’t do this estimation explicitly—and my guess is the authors and publishers were doing it implicitly instead of explicitly—but my guess is you get something like 20% fewer readers if the book is 20% longer, and the number of additional people who find it convincing with 20% more length is something like 5% of readers, and I think that means increasing the length is suboptimal.
(Like, in my favorite world we could A/B test this with the ebook or w/e, where we dynamically include material and see which pieces to include, or have something Arbital-style where people can expand sections for elaboration as needed. But this is very challenging to do with a physical book.)
I’ll just say I strongly disagree that 20% more length means 20% fewer readers. I would think it wouldn’t change readership much at all. The people who would read such a book wouldn’t drop off quite so dramatically.
I think 20% longer does meaningfully put it over a threshold that matters a lot. Being short enough that a not-particularly-invested person would choose to read it matters a lot.
I also don’t know that I buy being 20% longer would really help, in that, there’s basically two kinds of people reading the book – people who just want a basic thrust of the arguments, and people who want a good enough understanding to contribute intellectually in some way. I currently think the book does a pretty decent job at conveying the most central arguments.
I think I also disagree that most people will read the book vs the online contents. (disclosure: I worked on the website for the online resources). I think most people won’t finish the book (even among people who buy the book. People mostly don’t read books), but a lot of people are likely to read at least some of the free online contents.
(It’s a bit easier for me to believe this in part because I expect to exert some control/taste on how the online resources evolve over time and have ideas for making them really good)
I chose ~20% for a reason, but we can be more precise and say 15% to still keep it under 300 pages. Also, it you truly think space is at such a premium, then the scenario could be scaled back in favor of explaining how the policy proposals would work.
I am not arguing about the optimal balance and see no value in doing so. I am adding anecdata to the pile that there are strong effects once you near particular thresholds, and it’s easy to underrate these.
In general I don’t understand why you continue to think such a large number of calls are obvious, or imagine that the entire MIRI team, and ~100 people outside of it, thinking, reading, and drafting for many months, might not have weighed such thoughts as ‘perhaps the scenario ought to be shorter.’ Obviously these are all just margin calls; we don’t have many heuristic disagreements, and nothing you’ve said is the dunk you seem to think it is.
Ultimately Nate mostly made the calls once considerations were surfaced; if you’re talking to anyone other than him about the length of the scenario, you’re just barking up the wrong tree.
More on how I’m feeling in general here (some redundancies with our previous exchanges, but some new):
While a decent exchange, I’m not sure if this is that useful to either of us for future exchanges?
Regarding anecdata, you also have to take into account Scott Alexander disliking the scenario, Will being disappointed, Shakeel thinking the writing was terrible, and Buck thinking that they didn’t sufficiently argue their case. And that’s not even including the people who overly disagree with the main argument.
Anyway, we shall see how it turns out (and I sincerely hope it has a positive impact)
Most of these people claim to be speaking from their impression of how the public will respond, which is not yet knowable and will be known in the (near-ish) future.
My meta point remains that these are all marginal calls, that there are arguments the other direction, and that only Nate is equipped to argue them on the margin (because, in many cases, I disagree with Nate’s calls, but don’t think I’m right about literally all the things we disagree on; the same is true for everyone else at MIRI who’s been involved with the project, afaict). Eg I did not like the scenario, and felt Part 3 could have been improved by additional input from the technical governance team (and more detailed plans, which ended up in the online resources instead). It is unreasonable that I have been dragged into arguing against claims I basically agree with on account of introducing a single fact to the discussion (that length DOES matter, even among ‘elite’ audiences, and that thresholds for this may be low). My locally valid point and differing conclusions do not indicate that I disagree with you on your many other points.
That people wishing the book well are also releasing essays (based on guesses and, much less so in your case than others, misrepresentations) to talk others in the ecosystem out of promoting it could, in fact, be a big problem, mostly in that it could bring about a lukewarm overall reception (eg random normie-adjacent CEA employees don’t read it and don’t recommend it to their parents, because they believe the misrepresentations from Zach’s tweet thread here: https://x.com/Zach_y_robinson/status/1968810665973530781). Once that happens, Zach can say “well, nobody else at my workplace thought it was good,” when none of them read it, and HE didn’t read it, AND they just took his word for it.
I could agree with every one of your object level points, still think the book was net positive, and therefore think it was overconfident and self-fulfillingly nihilistic of you to aithoritatively predict how the public would respond.
I, of course, wouldn’t stand by the book if I didn’t think it was net positive, and hadn’t spent tens of hours hearing the other side out in advance of the release. Part I shines VERY bright in my eyes, and the other sections are, at least, better than similarly high-profile works (to the extent that those exist at all) tackling the same topics (exception for AI2027 vs Part 2).
It’s online. No, seriously—the online resources are like twice the length of the printed book.
Yes, I wrote that in the review. I think that they made the wrong choice because that is not how most people will consume the content.
Do you happen to have a good argument why the book proper couldn’t be 20% longer to better make their case?
I think there’s a curve of how many people pick up the book at all that depends on length. I didn’t do this estimation explicitly—and my guess is the authors and publishers were doing it implicitly instead of explicitly—but my guess is you get something like 20% fewer readers if the book is 20% longer, and the number of additional people who find it convincing with 20% more length is something like 5% of readers, and I think that means increasing the length is suboptimal.
(Like, in my favorite world we could A/B test this with the ebook or w/e, where we dynamically include material and see which pieces to include, or have something Arbital-style where people can expand sections for elaboration as needed. But this is very challenging to do with a physical book.)
Yes, a test would be nice but impossible.
I’ll just say I strongly disagree that 20% more length means 20% fewer readers. I would think it wouldn’t change readership much at all. The people who would read such a book wouldn’t drop off quite so dramatically.
I think 20% longer does meaningfully put it over a threshold that matters a lot. Being short enough that a not-particularly-invested person would choose to read it matters a lot.
I also don’t know that I buy being 20% longer would really help, in that, there’s basically two kinds of people reading the book – people who just want a basic thrust of the arguments, and people who want a good enough understanding to contribute intellectually in some way. I currently think the book does a pretty decent job at conveying the most central arguments.
I think I also disagree that most people will read the book vs the online contents. (disclosure: I worked on the website for the online resources). I think most people won’t finish the book (even among people who buy the book. People mostly don’t read books), but a lot of people are likely to read at least some of the free online contents.
(It’s a bit easier for me to believe this in part because I expect to exert some control/taste on how the online resources evolve over time and have ideas for making them really good)
I’ve met a large number of people who read books professionally (humanities researchers) who outright refuse to read any book >300 pages in length.
I chose ~20% for a reason, but we can be more precise and say 15% to still keep it under 300 pages.
Also, it you truly think space is at such a premium, then the scenario could be scaled back in favor of explaining how the policy proposals would work.
I am not arguing about the optimal balance and see no value in doing so. I am adding anecdata to the pile that there are strong effects once you near particular thresholds, and it’s easy to underrate these.
In general I don’t understand why you continue to think such a large number of calls are obvious, or imagine that the entire MIRI team, and ~100 people outside of it, thinking, reading, and drafting for many months, might not have weighed such thoughts as ‘perhaps the scenario ought to be shorter.’ Obviously these are all just margin calls; we don’t have many heuristic disagreements, and nothing you’ve said is the dunk you seem to think it is.
Ultimately Nate mostly made the calls once considerations were surfaced; if you’re talking to anyone other than him about the length of the scenario, you’re just barking up the wrong tree.
More on how I’m feeling in general here (some redundancies with our previous exchanges, but some new):
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3GbM9hmyJqn4LNXrG/yams-s-shortform?commentId=yjnTtbyotTbEnXqa9
While a decent exchange, I’m not sure if this is that useful to either of us for future exchanges?
Regarding anecdata, you also have to take into account Scott Alexander disliking the scenario, Will being disappointed, Shakeel thinking the writing was terrible, and Buck thinking that they didn’t sufficiently argue their case. And that’s not even including the people who overly disagree with the main argument.
Anyway, we shall see how it turns out (and I sincerely hope it has a positive impact)
Most of these people claim to be speaking from their impression of how the public will respond, which is not yet knowable and will be known in the (near-ish) future.
My meta point remains that these are all marginal calls, that there are arguments the other direction, and that only Nate is equipped to argue them on the margin (because, in many cases, I disagree with Nate’s calls, but don’t think I’m right about literally all the things we disagree on; the same is true for everyone else at MIRI who’s been involved with the project, afaict). Eg I did not like the scenario, and felt Part 3 could have been improved by additional input from the technical governance team (and more detailed plans, which ended up in the online resources instead). It is unreasonable that I have been dragged into arguing against claims I basically agree with on account of introducing a single fact to the discussion (that length DOES matter, even among ‘elite’ audiences, and that thresholds for this may be low). My locally valid point and differing conclusions do not indicate that I disagree with you on your many other points.
That people wishing the book well are also releasing essays (based on guesses and, much less so in your case than others, misrepresentations) to talk others in the ecosystem out of promoting it could, in fact, be a big problem, mostly in that it could bring about a lukewarm overall reception (eg random normie-adjacent CEA employees don’t read it and don’t recommend it to their parents, because they believe the misrepresentations from Zach’s tweet thread here: https://x.com/Zach_y_robinson/status/1968810665973530781). Once that happens, Zach can say “well, nobody else at my workplace thought it was good,” when none of them read it, and HE didn’t read it, AND they just took his word for it.
I could agree with every one of your object level points, still think the book was net positive, and therefore think it was overconfident and self-fulfillingly nihilistic of you to aithoritatively predict how the public would respond.
I, of course, wouldn’t stand by the book if I didn’t think it was net positive, and hadn’t spent tens of hours hearing the other side out in advance of the release. Part I shines VERY bright in my eyes, and the other sections are, at least, better than similarly high-profile works (to the extent that those exist at all) tackling the same topics (exception for AI2027 vs Part 2).