That is not the thing that Kelsey is doing. Kelsey is saying, “it is unproductive to continue conversations with people who make claims that their opponents are self-deceived in order to win political arguments; talking more with those people just gives them more sentences to convert into ammunition against their opponents.”
If your steelman of someone else is returning the result, “and therefore I must conclude that Kelsey freaking Piper, of all people, is trying to ban bridging gaps with others and questioning self-models,” something has gone catastrophically wrong with your steelmanning process.
davekasten
Karma: 2,570
Look, man, I’ve explained why it’s a joke in context, you’re allowed to not find it funny if you want. But if you’re ignoring the tweets where she compares me to a defender of slavery, I don’t think you’re engaged seriously in this discussion.
I don’t want to debate this, I am tired of working on behalf of AI safety and being compared to a slaveowner for going to the same conference that dozens of other LessWrong posters were at, I am so, so tired of you folks somehow thinking the most vile thing you could say about an American is possibly okay.
I do not want to enter this conversation in length, but I do want to note for those who did not see it previously in a prior post’s comment thread that I have had substantial issues with an ongoing pattern of harassing, psychologizing, and oddly Bible-quoting actions towards me by Holly Elmore, and interpret the description of her “attacking people’s character” in light of this personal experience.
I suggest that others consider this interpretation of that phrase in light of her actions, rather than an undeserved steelman of her actions and views.
Sure!
“zgpt” is “Write in a polite manner modeled after Patrick “patio11″ McKenzie” (my most useful chatpgt/claude prompt when I need to get it to rewrite something for me into a politer/more elegant mode—this is particularly useful when you’re tired and need to be polite in a note but don’t know how)
″/gcal” gives my Google calendar booking link
“zcontact” add my contact info
″/time” and ”/when” both unpack to “When would you need a response by?”—the most common question I ask
(Note that there’s inconsistency in the formatting here for textexpanders between z and slash, I probably should commit to one or another eventually)
Randomly noting that this is, IMO, a deeply underrated piece of advice: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bF4uuEpwug64bcGai/seriously-use-text-expansions
Just swinging by to say that this is the lowest-upvoted post on Lesswrong that has ever meaningfully increased my productivity, and I am thankful for it. If I could double-strong-upvote this, I would.
I would not disagree with this being a good time for advocacy! I suspect we’ll have at least one bigger shock still, and planning accordingly seems worthwhile. Walk and chew gum, etc.
You (Yes, You) Need A February 2020 Checklist for AI Policy
Interesting! Have you asked the UK-focused groups why they haven’t engaged with them?
On first blush, it seems a little confusing to blame folks working on US political campaigns for not doing enough in your own backyard, but perhaps I’m missing something here.
Remember, PauseAI US is distinct from PauseAI Global! That’s why they fundraise on PauseAI Global posts...wait, I think I missed something
Alvaro, to be clear, are you defending the highly-personal attacks that Holly has engaged in against me, against Zvi, and against Amanda Askell? And if you endorse those attacks, are you doing so in your personal or professional capacity? Here are some clear examples:
Perhaps somehow the item above about Holly making it clear that her tweets are PauseAI US’s strategy (https://x.com/ilex_ulmus/status/2070746368910520506) is insufficient. On many other occasions, Holly insists that she will “continue to berate” (https://x.com/ilex_ulmus/status/2021384678205444511) others and that she will be “merciless” (https://x.com/ilex_ulmus/status/2024337483572662487) in doing so.She’s repeatedly and obsessively attacked me for daring to go to a conference that Anthropic employees were at—despite the fact that many, many other AI safety people were there as well. (See, e.g., https://x.com/ilex_ulmus/status/2004416440263164412 ). She has repeatedly claimed that I am equivalent to a supporter of chattel slavery (see, e.g., https://x.com/ilex_ulmus/status/2004660356212269300 ) and does weird creepy pseudo-psychological analyses of my motivations (see that previous tweet, or many of our other interactions; she’s even quoted the Bible at me at one point).
And it’s not just me; for example, her attacks on Amanda Askell were so unwarranted that Eliezer Yudkowsky spoke up to say he opposed them (https://x.com/allTheYud/status/2028747691690242328?s=20), she’s attacked people who work for ARI (some of AI safety’s strongest soldiers on the Hill), etc.
Many people have asked her to stop this behavior, or tried to communicate to PauseAI US and Global why it’s so hard for us to work with all of you when your boss constantly attacks us in such an unwarranted, vile, personal way. And despite that, I still tell people that PauseAI US is worth donating to if it matches their values, because I’m trying very hard to avoid her bruising personal attacks to affect my values and beliefs. And frankly, it’s especially shitty in that context that you, who are (at least according to LinkedIn), the Development Director for PauseAI US, stick up for your boss treating me so awfully.
Any answer, @Maxime Fournes ?
I think there are worlds where you should still donate to PauseAI US, and worlds where you shouldn’t; I am not advocating in favor of it, or against it.[1] But I do believe anyone considering doing so should peruse Holly Elmore’s twitter account, since she has declared that “my tweets do represent the worldview PauseAI US is trying to evince” (https://x.com/ilex_ulmus/status/2070746368910520506), and decide whether or not you wish to fund more of those tweets, which appears to be their top leadership priority. Her tweets define PauseAI’s brand in the most consequential nation for AI; you should decide if you want to support that work.
Personally, I have several times asked PauseAI US and Global to stand up against these unwarranted, personal, and line-crossing attacks on me and others that Holly engages in; they have refused to do so. I am tired of it.- ^
I’m not unaware that noting their behavior might shape people’s opinions, but for the record, I have absolutely told some people quite recently that, given their personal values and priorities, donating to PauseAI US makes a lot of sense. I think other members of PauseAI US’s team are decent folks trapped in a bad situation; I know something of what that might feel like.
Given my own personal values and priorities, I personally would absolutely never give PauseAI US a single dollar from my own pocket so long as Holly Elmore is associated with it. Nor would I give PauseAI Global a dollar so long as they keep the same name as her organization and fail to accurately describe how closely the orgs were linked at the beginning (despite their formal independence) in posts like this one.
- ^
I think these people are trying to be good people in a tough situation.
But I don’t think it’s possibly tenable to evaluate PauseAI Global without understanding the actions of its US branch. I do not think this attempt to wave away widespread community discussions with a brief mention of “PauseAI US, which is a distinct entity with a different leadership team and approach” is remotely sufficient.
I also do not believe the history provided above is complete or candid without describing PauseAI Global’s co-evolution with PauseAI US in a much more substantive manner.I would recommend greater candor and proactive disclosure while seeking funding.
FWIW, my feeling at the time was, “this is fun, I enjoyed this, but 1. I don’t want to monopolize this experience as there’s only one ball to toss and 2. I’m getting increasingly worried of bonking someone on the head”
I think this might just be a non-ideal case study of the point you’re making, though I do agree with it generally
Concepts where (mostly) everyone agrees that not everyone agrees about whether the thing exists or not, but if it exists, it probably has agency, like divinities.
Orders that people seem to agree exist, even though it’s unclear how to judge them, like “the best band in the world”Objects that when imprecisely called can be either rigid body or ideal gas, like “water”
FWIW, I resonate with some parts of this post—e.g., that a near-ASI endgame is deeply unstable from a risk-of-war perspective.
But I also think it overall has a code smell of what you might call “politics as done by physicists” (https://xkcd.com/793/) : far too much confidence in the exhaustiveness of frameworks; far less respect for friction, uncertainty, and risk-averseness than exists in actual policymaking; and very little exploration of polities and societies as anything other than command-and-control actors.
And I note that, in general, politics as done by “physicists” has failed to work very well. (These are metaphorical “physicists” referencing the XKCD comic—actual literal physicists can become good politicians, if they learn the actual affordances of the societies they live in, however. Metaphorical “physicists” include things like the writings of Karl Marx, in addition to some literal physicists).
It’s helpful, I think, to do so; I don’t know if the mods have declared it an explicit norm, but I do know some folks who’ve had negative experiences when folks thought they were trying to pull a fast one.
(And just to reaffirm—don’t think Max was doing that, that’s why I wrote “misconstrued” above—just trying to help everyone keep their trigger fingers nice and relaxed here)
Max, it might be useful here to disclose your relationship with the same employer as Alex.
(I do agree with some parts of this post and think they are good, disagree with other parts that are weak arguments, but think LessWrong has an intense allergy against anything that could be misconstrued as astroturfing karma. I know you and think you’re a nice dude, so it’s to everyone’s benefit to flag this.)
One thing to consider: you live in a democracy (I’m guessing), and that democracy says that a citizen’s responsibility is to talk to their fellow citizens and their representatives. It doesn’t say that your responsibility is to solve the problem on behalf of your community; that’s more than we’ve ever asked from any ordinary citizen. If you write a letter to your newspaper editor and call your House Rep and Senators and state-level reps too, you’ve done your part, and we should be thankful for it.