I liked the way this issue was handled in “MIRI notes on alignment difficulty” (currently an unpublished Google Doc), where words that are used in specific ways are prefixed with a capital letter, like “R-understanding”, “O-alignment”, “C-alignment”. I think relying purely on context to distinguish subtle local differences in meaning is impractical because while humans are better at handling context than machines currently are, we’re still pretty bad at it in an absolute sense. It’s especially problematic when we have to switch contexts quickly and frequently, like when trying to follow multiple ongoing lines of discussion on LW. I imagine it would lead to great confusion or at best cognitively taxing thoughts like “Ok, I recall in this thread A previously defined B to mean C, and X defined Y to mean Z… Oh wait, actually a couple of comments up A redefined B to mean D. Now I have to re-read this comment to see what it is actually saying.”
I liked the way this issue was handled in “MIRI notes on alignment difficulty” (currently an unpublished Google Doc), where words that are used in specific ways are prefixed with a capital letter, like “R-understanding”, “O-alignment”, “C-alignment”. I think relying purely on context to distinguish subtle local differences in meaning is impractical because while humans are better at handling context than machines currently are, we’re still pretty bad at it in an absolute sense. It’s especially problematic when we have to switch contexts quickly and frequently, like when trying to follow multiple ongoing lines of discussion on LW. I imagine it would lead to great confusion or at best cognitively taxing thoughts like “Ok, I recall in this thread A previously defined B to mean C, and X defined Y to mean Z… Oh wait, actually a couple of comments up A redefined B to mean D. Now I have to re-read this comment to see what it is actually saying.”