From my view (formerly at MIRI, but left >2yrs ago, and so not speaking for them), I do think there’s an important delusion that “MIRI’s given up” does pop, which is an important element of this conversation, which Alex_Altair is maybe hinting at here. I think a lot of people viewed MIRI as “handling” AI x-risk instead of “valiantly trying to do something about” AI x-risk.
Once, at the MIRI lunch table, a shirt like this one (“Keep calm and let Nate handle it”) became the topic of conversation. (MIRI still hadn’t made any swag yet, and the pro-swag faction was jokingly proposing this as our official t-shirt.) Nate responded with “I think our t-shirts should say ‘SEND HELP’ instead.”
I think The Death With Dignity post made it clear that MIRI did not think it was handling AI x-risk, and that no one else was either; more poetically, it was not wearing the “Keep calm and let Nate handle it” t-shirt and was instead wearing the “SEND HELP” t-shirt. [Except, you know, the t-shirt actually said “SEND DIGNITY” because Eliezer thought that would get better reactions than “SEND HELP”.]
And so when I hear someone say that MIRI has “given up” I assume they have a model where this was the short (very lossy, not actually correct!) summary of that update.
From my view (formerly at MIRI, but left >2yrs ago, and so not speaking for them), I do think there’s an important delusion that “MIRI’s given up” does pop, which is an important element of this conversation, which Alex_Altair is maybe hinting at here. I think a lot of people viewed MIRI as “handling” AI x-risk instead of “valiantly trying to do something about” AI x-risk.
Once, at the MIRI lunch table, a shirt like this one (“Keep calm and let Nate handle it”) became the topic of conversation. (MIRI still hadn’t made any swag yet, and the pro-swag faction was jokingly proposing this as our official t-shirt.) Nate responded with “I think our t-shirts should say ‘SEND HELP’ instead.”
I think The Death With Dignity post made it clear that MIRI did not think it was handling AI x-risk, and that no one else was either; more poetically, it was not wearing the “Keep calm and let Nate handle it” t-shirt and was instead wearing the “SEND HELP” t-shirt. [Except, you know, the t-shirt actually said “SEND DIGNITY” because Eliezer thought that would get better reactions than “SEND HELP”.]
And so when I hear someone say that MIRI has “given up” I assume they have a model where this was the short (very lossy, not actually correct!) summary of that update.