This seems to me unnecessarily defensive. I support the goals of SingInst, but I could never bring myself to accept the kind of salary cut you guys are taking in order to work there. Like every other human on the planet, I can’t be accurately modelled with a utility function that places any value on far distant strangers; you can more accurately model what stranger-altruism I do show as purchase of moral satisfaction, though I do seek for such altruism to be efficient. SingInst should pay the salaries it needs to pay to recruit the kind of staff it needs to fulfil its mission; it’s harder to recruit if staff are expected to be defensive about demanding market salaries for their expertise, with no more than a normal adjustment for altruistic work much as if they were working for an animal sanctuary.
I could never bring myself to accept the… salary cut you guys are taking in order to work [at SI]… SingInst should pay the salaries it needs to pay to recruit the kind of staff it needs to fulfill its mission; it’s harder to recruit if staff are expected to be defensive about demanding market salaries for their expertise...
So when I say “unnecessarily defensive”, I mean that all the stuff about the cost of taxis is after-the-fact defensive rationalization; it can’t be said about a single dollar you spend on having a life outside of SI. The truth is that even the best human rationalist in the world isn’t going to agree to giving those up, and since you have to recruit humans, you’d best pay the sort of salary that is going to attract and retain them. That of course includes yourself.
The same goes for saying “move to the Honduras”. Your perfectly utility-maximising AGIs will move to the Honduras, but your human staff won’t; they want to live in places like the Bay Area.
As katydee and thomblake say, I mean that working for SingInst would mean a bigger reduction in my salary than I could currently bring myself to accept. If I really valued the lives of strangers as a utilitarian, the benefits to them of taking a salary cut would be so huge that it would totally outweigh the costs to me. But it looks like I only really place direct value on the short-term interests of myself and those close to me, and everything else is purchase of moral satisfaction. Happily, purchase of moral satisfaction can still save the world if it is done efficiently.
Since the labour pool contains only human beings, with no true altruistic utility maximizers, SingInst should hire and pay accordingly; the market shows that people will accept a lower salary for a job that directly does good, but not a vastly lower salary. It would increase SI-utility if Luke accepted a lower salary, but it wouldn’t increase Luke-utility, and driving Luke away would cost a lot of SI-utility, so calling for it is in the end a cheap shot and a bad recommendation.
I live in London, which is also freaking expensive—but so are all the places I want to live. There’s a reason people are prepared to pay more to live in these places.
Indeed. I guess “taking a cut” can sometimes mean “taking some of the money”, so you could interpret this as meaning “I couldn’t accept all that money”, which as you say is the opposite of what I meant!
I think the standard answer is that the networking and tech industry connections available in the Bay Area are useful enough to SIAI to justify the high costs of operating there.
This seems to me unnecessarily defensive. I support the goals of SingInst, but I could never bring myself to accept the kind of salary cut you guys are taking in order to work there. Like every other human on the planet, I can’t be accurately modelled with a utility function that places any value on far distant strangers; you can more accurately model what stranger-altruism I do show as purchase of moral satisfaction, though I do seek for such altruism to be efficient. SingInst should pay the salaries it needs to pay to recruit the kind of staff it needs to fulfil its mission; it’s harder to recruit if staff are expected to be defensive about demanding market salaries for their expertise, with no more than a normal adjustment for altruistic work much as if they were working for an animal sanctuary.
Yes, exactly.
So when I say “unnecessarily defensive”, I mean that all the stuff about the cost of taxis is after-the-fact defensive rationalization; it can’t be said about a single dollar you spend on having a life outside of SI. The truth is that even the best human rationalist in the world isn’t going to agree to giving those up, and since you have to recruit humans, you’d best pay the sort of salary that is going to attract and retain them. That of course includes yourself.
The same goes for saying “move to the Honduras”. Your perfectly utility-maximising AGIs will move to the Honduras, but your human staff won’t; they want to live in places like the Bay Area.
You know that the Bay Area is freakin’ expensive, right?
Re-reading, the whole thing is pretty unclear!
As katydee and thomblake say, I mean that working for SingInst would mean a bigger reduction in my salary than I could currently bring myself to accept. If I really valued the lives of strangers as a utilitarian, the benefits to them of taking a salary cut would be so huge that it would totally outweigh the costs to me. But it looks like I only really place direct value on the short-term interests of myself and those close to me, and everything else is purchase of moral satisfaction. Happily, purchase of moral satisfaction can still save the world if it is done efficiently.
Since the labour pool contains only human beings, with no true altruistic utility maximizers, SingInst should hire and pay accordingly; the market shows that people will accept a lower salary for a job that directly does good, but not a vastly lower salary. It would increase SI-utility if Luke accepted a lower salary, but it wouldn’t increase Luke-utility, and driving Luke away would cost a lot of SI-utility, so calling for it is in the end a cheap shot and a bad recommendation.
I live in London, which is also freaking expensive—but so are all the places I want to live. There’s a reason people are prepared to pay more to live in these places.
Hmm… Perhaps you don’t know that “salary cut” above means taking much less money?
I had missed the word cut. Damn it, I shouldn’t be commenting while sleep-deprived!
Indeed. I guess “taking a cut” can sometimes mean “taking some of the money”, so you could interpret this as meaning “I couldn’t accept all that money”, which as you say is the opposite of what I meant!
So why not relocate SIAI somewhere with a more reasonable cost of living?
I think the standard answer is that the networking and tech industry connections available in the Bay Area are useful enough to SIAI to justify the high costs of operating there.
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Perhaps that’s why he’s saying he wouldn’t be willing to live there on a low salary?