This reminds me of related questions around slowing down AI, discussing AI with a mass audience, or building public support for AI policy (e.g. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pm6Mn4a3h4oekCCay/two-strange-things-about-ai-safety-policy, http://www.zachgroff.com/2017/08/does-ai-safety-and-effective-altruist.html). A lot of the arguments against doing these things have this same motivation that we are concerned about the others for reasons that are somewhat abstruse. Where would these “sociopolitical” considerations get us on these questions?
zdgroff
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This seems like a promising direction that I tentatively agree with. It sounds similar to the “iterative natural kind” strategy that Megan Peters mentions here, though her approach is a bit more formal. (Would be curious if that sounds right to you, though no need to answer.)
I would think the problem is that your judgments about when to revise your top-down theory end up being ad hoc. The GWT/MoE example is making a judgment call about how similar the two structures are, but it’s fundamentally just a judgment call. Probably we all do and will in fact make judgment calls about which theories we endorse in part based on what they imply about the world, and so this is just admitting that and doing it more honestly and deliberately, but I guess it’s just unfortunate that this is what we have to go with.