I’m imagining here something like a policy of emailing OpenAI and telling them your plan and offering them as much time to talk as possible, and saying that in a week you’ll publicly publish your reasoning too so that other people can respond + potentially change your mind. I also think it would’ve been quite reasonable to not expect any response from a big organisation like OpenAI, and to be doing it only out of courtesy.
It seems from above that talking to OpenAI didn’t change Connor’s mind, and that public discourse was very useful. I expect Buck would not have talked to him if he hadn’t done this publicly (I will ask Buck when I see him) (Added: Buck says this is true). Given the OP I don’t think it would’ve been able to resolve privately, and I think I am quite actively happy that it has resolved the way it has: Someone publicly deciding to not unilaterally break an important new norm, even while they strongly believe this particular application of the norm is redundant/unhelpful.
I’d be interested to know if you think that it would’ve been perfectly pro-social to give OpenAI a week’s heads-up and then writing your reasoning publicly and reading everyone else’s critiques (100% of random people from Hacker News and Twitter and longer chats with Buck). I have a sense that you wouldn’t but I’m not fully sure why.
I also think it would’ve been quite reasonable to not expect any response from a big organisation like OpenAI, and to be doing it only out of courtesy.
Yeah, that seems reasonable, but it doesn’t seem like you could reasonably have 99% confidence in this.
It seems from above that talking to OpenAI didn’t change Connor’s mind, and that public discourse was very useful. I expect Buck would not have talked to him if he hadn’t done this publicly (I will ask Buck when I see him).
I agree with this, but it’s ex-post reasoning, I don’t think this was predictable with enough certainty ex-ante.
Given the OP I don’t think it would’ve been able to resolve privately, but if it had I think I’d be less happy than with what actually happened, which is someone publicly deciding to not unilaterally break an important new norm, even while they strongly believe this particular application of the norm is redundant/unhelpful.
It’s always possible to publicly post after you’ve come to the decision privately. (Also, I’m really only talking about what should have been done ex-ante, not ex-post.)
I’d be interested to know if you think that it would’ve been perfectly pro-social to give OpenAI a week’s heads-up and then writing your reasoning publicly and reading everyone else’s critiques (100% of random people from Hacker News and Twitter and longer chats with Buck). I have a sense that you wouldn’t but I’m not fully sure why.
That seems fine, and very close to what I would have gone with myself. Maybe I would have first emailed OpenAI, and if I hadn’t gotten a response in 2-3 days, then said I would make it public if I didn’t hear back in another 2-3 days. (This is all assuming I don’t know anyone at OpenAI, to put myself in the author’s position.)
I’m imagining here something like a policy of emailing OpenAI and telling them your plan and offering them as much time to talk as possible, and saying that in a week you’ll publicly publish your reasoning too so that other people can respond + potentially change your mind. I also think it would’ve been quite reasonable to not expect any response from a big organisation like OpenAI, and to be doing it only out of courtesy.
It seems from above that talking to OpenAI didn’t change Connor’s mind, and that public discourse was very useful. I expect Buck would not have talked to him if he hadn’t done this publicly (I will ask Buck when I see him) (Added: Buck says this is true). Given the OP I don’t think it would’ve been able to resolve privately, and I think I am quite actively happy that it has resolved the way it has: Someone publicly deciding to not unilaterally break an important new norm, even while they strongly believe this particular application of the norm is redundant/unhelpful.
I’d be interested to know if you think that it would’ve been perfectly pro-social to give OpenAI a week’s heads-up and then writing your reasoning publicly and reading everyone else’s critiques (100% of random people from Hacker News and Twitter and longer chats with Buck). I have a sense that you wouldn’t but I’m not fully sure why.
Yeah, that seems reasonable, but it doesn’t seem like you could reasonably have 99% confidence in this.
I agree with this, but it’s ex-post reasoning, I don’t think this was predictable with enough certainty ex-ante.
It’s always possible to publicly post after you’ve come to the decision privately. (Also, I’m really only talking about what should have been done ex-ante, not ex-post.)
That seems fine, and very close to what I would have gone with myself. Maybe I would have first emailed OpenAI, and if I hadn’t gotten a response in 2-3 days, then said I would make it public if I didn’t hear back in another 2-3 days. (This is all assuming I don’t know anyone at OpenAI, to put myself in the author’s position.)