I don’t think Holden was looking for endorsements from “donors and high-status potential endorsers”. I interpreted his post as looking for endorsements from experts on AI. The former would be evidence that SI could go on to raise money and impress people, and the latter would be evidence that SI’s mission is theoretically sound. (The strength of that evidence is debatable, of course.) Given that, looking for endorsements from AI experts seems like it would be A) a good idea and B) consistent with the rest of GiveWell’s methodology.
Although I would have thought that Holden is smart enough to decide whether the FAI project is theoretically sound without his relying on AI experts, maybe I am underestimating the difficulties of people like Holden who are smarter than I am, but who didn’t devote their college years to mastering computer science like I did.
I saw a related issue in a blog about a woman who lost the use of her arm due to an incorrectly treated infection. She initially complained that the judge in her disability case didn’t even look at the arm, but then was pleasantly surprised to have the ruling turn out in favor anyway.
I realized: of course the judge wouldn’t look at her arm. Having done disability cases before, the judge should know that gruesome appearance correlates weakly, if at all, with legitimate disability, but the emotional response is likely to throw off evaluation of things like an actual doctor’s report on the subject. Holden, similarly, is willing to admit that there are things about AI he personally doesn’t know, but that professionals who have studied the field for decades do know, and is further willing to trust those professionals to be minimally competent.
I have enough experience of legal and adminstrative disability hearings to say that each side always has medical experts on its side unless one side is unwilling or unable to pay for the testimony of at least one medical expert.
In almost all sufficiently important decisions, there are experts on both sides of the issue. And pointing out that one side has more experts or more impressive experts carries vastly less weight with me than, e.g., Eliezer’s old “Knowability of FAI” article at http://sl4.org/wiki/KnowabilityOfFAI
I don’t think Holden was looking for endorsements from “donors and high-status potential endorsers”. I interpreted his post as looking for endorsements from experts on AI. The former would be evidence that SI could go on to raise money and impress people, and the latter would be evidence that SI’s mission is theoretically sound. (The strength of that evidence is debatable, of course.) Given that, looking for endorsements from AI experts seems like it would be A) a good idea and B) consistent with the rest of GiveWell’s methodology.
Although I would have thought that Holden is smart enough to decide whether the FAI project is theoretically sound without his relying on AI experts, maybe I am underestimating the difficulties of people like Holden who are smarter than I am, but who didn’t devote their college years to mastering computer science like I did.
I saw a related issue in a blog about a woman who lost the use of her arm due to an incorrectly treated infection. She initially complained that the judge in her disability case didn’t even look at the arm, but then was pleasantly surprised to have the ruling turn out in favor anyway.
I realized: of course the judge wouldn’t look at her arm. Having done disability cases before, the judge should know that gruesome appearance correlates weakly, if at all, with legitimate disability, but the emotional response is likely to throw off evaluation of things like an actual doctor’s report on the subject. Holden, similarly, is willing to admit that there are things about AI he personally doesn’t know, but that professionals who have studied the field for decades do know, and is further willing to trust those professionals to be minimally competent.
I have enough experience of legal and adminstrative disability hearings to say that each side always has medical experts on its side unless one side is unwilling or unable to pay for the testimony of at least one medical expert.
In almost all sufficiently important decisions, there are experts on both sides of the issue. And pointing out that one side has more experts or more impressive experts carries vastly less weight with me than, e.g., Eliezer’s old “Knowability of FAI” article at http://sl4.org/wiki/KnowabilityOfFAI