Presumably you relatively recently gained access to research Singinst does not make public, if any. Were you surprised at the level of progress already made, either positively or negatively?
So you really do need more journal-monkeys eh? Maybe I should think about the visiting fellows thing. (I’m poor so I can’t give money yet).
Why can’t you just post a quick blurb that you’ve solved such-and-such problem and the solution is along these lines? Surely it doesn’t have to be journal articles? Maybe there is a component of secrecy?
By ‘writing these things up’ I don’t mean journal articles, I mean blog posts or working papers. The problem is that it takes significant time and effort just to explain the problem and our results somewhat clearly.
If you haven’t explained your results, are you sure you actually have them? That sounds to me like “I already figured out the algorithm, I won’t learn anything by coding it.”
Do you think that the same thing might be the case for other x-risks organizations? I recall that the previous analysis of other future tech safety/x-risks organizations didn’t seem to find anything very promising—might it be the case that those organizations also have stuff going on behind the scenes? If so, this seems like it might be a significant barrier to the greater x-risks community, since these organizations may be duplicating one another’s results or otherwise inefficiently allocating their respective resources, volunteers, etc.
I was thinking more about groups like Lifeboat or IEET, who don’t really appear to be doing any research at all, as opposed to FHI/SIAI, who do at least occasionally publish.
The more precise question would be “what schedules are you considering for making that research public,” since presumably after SI successfully builds their basement GAI they’ll publish everything.
It’s all a matter of funding and recruiting. With no increase in funding, it would remain very difficult to publish all that research, as non-published conceptual research will easily outpace published research unless we have a dedicated writer or two to write things up as we discover them.
Presumably you relatively recently gained access to research Singinst does not make public, if any. Were you surprised at the level of progress already made, either positively or negatively?
Yes, strongly and positively.
this is encouraging. From outside it looks like SIAI is stuck.
That was my impression too, and then I landed in Berkeley and thought, “Woah! What the hell? Why haven’t you guys published all that shit?”
And then I started trying to write it up and I was like, “Oh yeah. Writing stuff up takes lots of time and effort.”
So you really do need more journal-monkeys eh? Maybe I should think about the visiting fellows thing. (I’m poor so I can’t give money yet).
Why can’t you just post a quick blurb that you’ve solved such-and-such problem and the solution is along these lines? Surely it doesn’t have to be journal articles? Maybe there is a component of secrecy?
By ‘writing these things up’ I don’t mean journal articles, I mean blog posts or working papers. The problem is that it takes significant time and effort just to explain the problem and our results somewhat clearly.
If you haven’t explained your results, are you sure you actually have them? That sounds to me like “I already figured out the algorithm, I won’t learn anything by coding it.”
I tend to agree with this, too, though my own brain does “thinking by writing” more than other brains, I think.
that bad eh? see you next year.
Do you think that the same thing might be the case for other x-risks organizations? I recall that the previous analysis of other future tech safety/x-risks organizations didn’t seem to find anything very promising—might it be the case that those organizations also have stuff going on behind the scenes? If so, this seems like it might be a significant barrier to the greater x-risks community, since these organizations may be duplicating one another’s results or otherwise inefficiently allocating their respective resources, volunteers, etc.
It’s always the case that more research is being done than gets published. I know it’s true for FHI, too. It’s just especially true of SI.
I was thinking more about groups like Lifeboat or IEET, who don’t really appear to be doing any research at all, as opposed to FHI/SIAI, who do at least occasionally publish.
Is that research going to be made public?
The more precise question would be “what schedules are you considering for making that research public,” since presumably after SI successfully builds their basement GAI they’ll publish everything.
Presumably if SI builds a basement GAI publishing will not be a priority as we will either be busy bobsledding down rainbows or not being alive.
It’s all a matter of funding and recruiting. With no increase in funding, it would remain very difficult to publish all that research, as non-published conceptual research will easily outpace published research unless we have a dedicated writer or two to write things up as we discover them.