If you want to pass yourself off as a real magician/psychic/whatever you do conjuring tricks, you don’t do the same trick too often in front of the same audience and if you are in doubt about your ability to repeat the trick you quit while you are ahead. (Or only behind 2 to 3 as the case may be).
Whereas a scientist with a demonstration can and usually will demonstrate it as often as is needed, and publish their method so others can demonstrate it.
These considerations lead me to strongly suspect that Eliezer’s method is more like an unreliable conjuring trick, that would seem much less impressive if you knew how it was done, than it is like a reliable scientific method.
It’s still an excellent demonstration that the problem of keeping an AI in a box is far less trivial than it first appears to be, but I would not hold out much hope of ever seeing the transcripts, nor of there being anything astounding in them if you do.
If you want to pass yourself off as a real magician/psychic/whatever you do conjuring tricks [...] if you are in doubt about your ability to repeat the trick you quit while you are ahead.
I know you are talking metaphorically, but an interesting aside:
Professional-level performers pretty much only perform tricks that they are 99.99% certain of. Performers act as if what they are doing is difficult, when in reality, a professional-level performer could do the entire act in their sleep. This is especially true of magicians, where a mis-step will ruin the illusion. Another example is that jugglers will drop on purpose, to show how hard their act is, and to get the audience on their side.
Performing before the same audience means that they are theoretically able to gather additional evidence everytime. Since (if both AI and Gatekeeper uphold their NDA) the only information open to the public is a yes/no, no gathering is possible.
If you want to pass yourself off as a real magician/psychic/whatever you do conjuring tricks, you don’t do the same trick too often in front of the same audience and if you are in doubt about your ability to repeat the trick you quit while you are ahead. (Or only behind 2 to 3 as the case may be).
Whereas a scientist with a demonstration can and usually will demonstrate it as often as is needed, and publish their method so others can demonstrate it.
These considerations lead me to strongly suspect that Eliezer’s method is more like an unreliable conjuring trick, that would seem much less impressive if you knew how it was done, than it is like a reliable scientific method.
It’s still an excellent demonstration that the problem of keeping an AI in a box is far less trivial than it first appears to be, but I would not hold out much hope of ever seeing the transcripts, nor of there being anything astounding in them if you do.
I know you are talking metaphorically, but an interesting aside:
Professional-level performers pretty much only perform tricks that they are 99.99% certain of. Performers act as if what they are doing is difficult, when in reality, a professional-level performer could do the entire act in their sleep. This is especially true of magicians, where a mis-step will ruin the illusion. Another example is that jugglers will drop on purpose, to show how hard their act is, and to get the audience on their side.
Performing before the same audience means that they are theoretically able to gather additional evidence everytime. Since (if both AI and Gatekeeper uphold their NDA) the only information open to the public is a yes/no, no gathering is possible.