I think it’s less about how many holes there are in a given plan, and more like “how much detail does it need before it counts as a plan?” If someone says that their plan is “Keep doing alignment research until the problem is solved”, then whether or not there’s a hole in that plan is downstream of all the other disagreements about how easy the alignment problem is. But it seems like, separate from the other disagreements, Eliezer tends to think that having detailed plans is very useful for making progress.
Analogy for why I don’t buy this: I don’t think that the Wright brothers’ plan to solve the flying problem would count as a “plan” by Eliezer’s standards. But it did work.
As far as I understand, Eliezer doesn’t claim that plans are generally very useful for making progress in solving problems. Trial and error usually works very well. But he also says that trial and error will not work for the alignment problem; we have to get it right the first time, therefore detailed plans are our only hope. This isn’t a overconfidence in plans, it is just a high confidence that the usual trial and error approach can’t be used this time.
I think it’s less about how many holes there are in a given plan, and more like “how much detail does it need before it counts as a plan?” If someone says that their plan is “Keep doing alignment research until the problem is solved”, then whether or not there’s a hole in that plan is downstream of all the other disagreements about how easy the alignment problem is. But it seems like, separate from the other disagreements, Eliezer tends to think that having detailed plans is very useful for making progress.
Analogy for why I don’t buy this: I don’t think that the Wright brothers’ plan to solve the flying problem would count as a “plan” by Eliezer’s standards. But it did work.
As far as I understand, Eliezer doesn’t claim that plans are generally very useful for making progress in solving problems. Trial and error usually works very well. But he also says that trial and error will not work for the alignment problem; we have to get it right the first time, therefore detailed plans are our only hope. This isn’t a overconfidence in plans, it is just a high confidence that the usual trial and error approach can’t be used this time.