In general, it is difficult to give advice if whether the advice is good depends on background facts that giver and recipient disagree about. I think the most honest approach is to explicitly state what your advice depends on when you think the recipient is likely to disagree. E.g. “I think living at high altitude is bad for human health, so in my opinion you shouldn’t retire in Santa Fe.”
If I think AGI will arrive around 2055, and you think it will arrive in 2028, what is achieved by you saying “given timelines, I don’t think your mechinterp project will be helpful”? That would just be confusing. Maybe if people are being so deferential that they don’t even think about what assumptions inform your advice, and your assumptions are better than theirs, it could be narrowly helpful. But that would be a pretty bad situation...
In general, it is difficult to give advice if whether the advice is good depends on background facts that giver and recipient disagree about. I think the most honest approach is to explicitly state what your advice depends on when you think the recipient is likely to disagree. E.g. “I think living at high altitude is bad for human health, so in my opinion you shouldn’t retire in Santa Fe.”
If I think AGI will arrive around 2055, and you think it will arrive in 2028, what is achieved by you saying “given timelines, I don’t think your mechinterp project will be helpful”? That would just be confusing. Maybe if people are being so deferential that they don’t even think about what assumptions inform your advice, and your assumptions are better than theirs, it could be narrowly helpful. But that would be a pretty bad situation...