Some more nuance to add here, since I ranted this out quickly the other day:
I definitely think organizations, and individuals, can give up without realizing they’ve given up. Some people said this post felt like it made it harder for them to think or talk about MIRI, pushing them to adopt some narrative and kinda yelling at them for questioning it. And I don’t at all mean to do that (in response to this, I got rid of the “obviously IMO?” part of the title).
I maybe want to distinguish several types of claims you might care about:
“MIRI” the organization has given up
Most of the individuals who work (or recently worked) at MIRI have given up
Eliezer has given up
Nate has given up
“MIRI” the organization is in some kind of depressed and/or confused state and isn’t able to coordinate with itself well and is radiating depressed / confused vibes, or is radiating something that feels like giving up.
MIRI has become a sort of zombie-org that should probably disband, each of the individual people there would be better off thinking of themselves as an independent thinker/researcher.
#5, but for Eliezer, or Nate, or most individuals at MIRI
MIRI has given up on technical alignment research
Eliezer, Nate, or any given individual has given up on technical alignment research.
I think at least some of those claims are either true, or might be true, for reasonable-definitions of “gave up”, and I want people to have an easy time thinking about it for themselves. But I feel like the people I see saying “MIRI gave up” are doing some kind of epistemically screwy thing that I think warrants being called out. (note: different people are saying slightly different things and maybe mean slightly different things)
Some more nuance to add here, since I ranted this out quickly the other day:
I definitely think organizations, and individuals, can give up without realizing they’ve given up. Some people said this post felt like it made it harder for them to think or talk about MIRI, pushing them to adopt some narrative and kinda yelling at them for questioning it. And I don’t at all mean to do that (in response to this, I got rid of the “obviously IMO?” part of the title).
I maybe want to distinguish several types of claims you might care about:
“MIRI” the organization has given up
Most of the individuals who work (or recently worked) at MIRI have given up
Eliezer has given up
Nate has given up
“MIRI” the organization is in some kind of depressed and/or confused state and isn’t able to coordinate with itself well and is radiating depressed / confused vibes, or is radiating something that feels like giving up.
MIRI has become a sort of zombie-org that should probably disband, each of the individual people there would be better off thinking of themselves as an independent thinker/researcher.
#5, but for Eliezer, or Nate, or most individuals at MIRI
MIRI has given up on technical alignment research
Eliezer, Nate, or any given individual has given up on technical alignment research.
I think at least some of those claims are either true, or might be true, for reasonable-definitions of “gave up”, and I want people to have an easy time thinking about it for themselves. But I feel like the people I see saying “MIRI gave up” are doing some kind of epistemically screwy thing that I think warrants being called out. (note: different people are saying slightly different things and maybe mean slightly different things)