1. Do Jaime’s writings that that he cares about x-risk or not? → I think he fairly clearly states that cares.
2. Does all the evidence, when put together, imply that actually, Jaime doesn’t care about x-risk? → This is a much more speculative question. We have to assess how honest he is in his writing. I’d bet money that Jaime at least believes that he cares and is taking corresponding actions. This of course doesn’t absolve him of full responsibility—there are many people who believe they do things for good reasons, but causally actually do things for selfish reasons. But now we’re getting to a particularly speculative area.
“I also think it should be our dominant prior that someone is not motivated by reducing x-risk unless they directly claim they do.” → Again, to me, I regard him as basically claiming that he does care. I’d bet money that if we ask him to clarify, he’d claim that he cares. (Happy to bet on this, if that would help)
At the same time, I doubt that this is your actual crux. I’d expect that even if he claimed (more precisely) to care, you’d still be skeptical of some aspect of this.
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Personally, I have both positive and skeptical feelings about Epoch, as I do other evals orgs. I think they’re doing some good work, but I really wish they’d lean a lot more on [clearly useful for x-risk] work. If I had a lot of money to donate, I could picture donating some to Epoch, but only if I could get a lot of assurances on which projects it would go to.
But while I have reservations about the org, I think some of the specific attacks against them (and defenses or them) are not accurate.
There are a few questions here.
1. Do Jaime’s writings that that he cares about x-risk or not?
→ I think he fairly clearly states that cares.
2. Does all the evidence, when put together, imply that actually, Jaime doesn’t care about x-risk?
→ This is a much more speculative question. We have to assess how honest he is in his writing. I’d bet money that Jaime at least believes that he cares and is taking corresponding actions. This of course doesn’t absolve him of full responsibility—there are many people who believe they do things for good reasons, but causally actually do things for selfish reasons. But now we’re getting to a particularly speculative area.
“I also think it should be our dominant prior that someone is not motivated by reducing x-risk unless they directly claim they do.” → Again, to me, I regard him as basically claiming that he does care. I’d bet money that if we ask him to clarify, he’d claim that he cares. (Happy to bet on this, if that would help)
At the same time, I doubt that this is your actual crux. I’d expect that even if he claimed (more precisely) to care, you’d still be skeptical of some aspect of this.
---
Personally, I have both positive and skeptical feelings about Epoch, as I do other evals orgs. I think they’re doing some good work, but I really wish they’d lean a lot more on [clearly useful for x-risk] work. If I had a lot of money to donate, I could picture donating some to Epoch, but only if I could get a lot of assurances on which projects it would go to.
But while I have reservations about the org, I think some of the specific attacks against them (and defenses or them) are not accurate.