I’m noticing a higher-than-normal level of irritability among those deeply involved in the AI safety space in the days following the Mythos release. This is entirely understandable. Anyone who cares deeply about the future of humanity and understands what is happening has a lot to be worried about and the irritability is not surprising.
I personally am furious at Anthropic for a number of obvious reasons (that for my own sanity I won’t enumerate).
But even when there are reasons to be scared or angry, I think there is a lot of value in trying to remain kind to colleagues and peers. It’s important for optics and coordination and a bunch of other things. If I thought short-term loosening of standard conventions of niceness would make extinction less likely, I would support it, but I do not expect this to be the case.
I was thinking about this myself when I was looking through some conversations earlier, and seeing people polarizing. I could feel myself getting upset, too, and I didn’t want to be. It feels a bit like a Shiri’s scissor catalyst!
I think it’s important to remember we all want the same thing—safe and empowered humanity. And we’re just trying our best to work out how to get there, even if it seems like different approaches are at cross purposes.
I was thinking about this myself when I was looking through some conversations earlier
Not sure if you are referring to LW conversations, but when I wrote this, I had private interactions in mind more than specific LW threads. This may apply to LW/twitter as well (not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing) but just want to clarify what I originally meant!
I’m noticing a higher-than-normal level of irritability among those deeply involved in the AI safety space in the days following the Mythos release. This is entirely understandable. Anyone who cares deeply about the future of humanity and understands what is happening has a lot to be worried about and the irritability is not surprising.
I personally am furious at Anthropic for a number of obvious reasons (that for my own sanity I won’t enumerate).
But even when there are reasons to be scared or angry, I think there is a lot of value in trying to remain kind to colleagues and peers. It’s important for optics and coordination and a bunch of other things. If I thought short-term loosening of standard conventions of niceness would make extinction less likely, I would support it, but I do not expect this to be the case.
I was thinking about this myself when I was looking through some conversations earlier, and seeing people polarizing. I could feel myself getting upset, too, and I didn’t want to be. It feels a bit like a Shiri’s scissor catalyst!
I think it’s important to remember we all want the same thing—safe and empowered humanity. And we’re just trying our best to work out how to get there, even if it seems like different approaches are at cross purposes.
This post from earlier today helped put me in the frame of mind that an adversarial disagreement can be dissolved with better communication: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Wstw6zmc9gszpANnc/why-control-creates-conflict-and-when-to-open-instead
Not sure if you are referring to LW conversations, but when I wrote this, I had private interactions in mind more than specific LW threads. This may apply to LW/twitter as well (not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing) but just want to clarify what I originally meant!