Level up first. I can’t evaluate physics research, so I just accept that I can’t tell which of it is correct; I don’t try to figure it out from the politics of physicists arguing with each other, because that doesn’t work.
But what does this mean regarding my support of the SIAI? Imagine I was a politician who had no time to level up first but who had to decide if they allowed for some particle accelerator or AGI project to be financed at all or go ahead with full support and without further security measures.
Would you tell a politician to go and read the sequences and if, after reading the publications, they don’t see why AGI research is as dangerous as being portrait by the SIAI they should just forget about it and stop trying to figure out what to do? Or do you simply tell them to trust a fringe group which does predict that a given particle accelerator might destroy the world when all experts claim there is no risk?
Writing is influential when many people are influenced by it.
You talked about Yudkowsky’s influential publications. I thought you meant some academic papers, not the LW sequences. They indeed influenced some people, yet I don’t think they influenced the right people.
But what does this mean regarding my support of the SIAI? Imagine I was a politician who had no time to level up first but who had to decide if they allowed for some particle accelerator or AGI project to be financed at all or go ahead with full support and without further security measures.
Would you tell a politician to go and read the sequences and if, after reading the publications, they don’t see why AGI research is as dangerous as being portrait by the SIAI they should just forget about it and stop trying to figure out what to do? Or do you simply tell them to trust a fringe group which does predict that a given particle accelerator might destroy the world when all experts claim there is no risk?
You talked about Yudkowsky’s influential publications. I thought you meant some academic papers, not the LW sequences. They indeed influenced some people, yet I don’t think they influenced the right people.