As Alex Altair says above, I don’t think that it’s completely true that MIRI has given up. That being said, if you just include two more paragraphs below the ones you quoted from the Death with Dignity post:
Q1: Does ‘dying with dignity’ in this context mean accepting the certainty of your death, and not childishly regretting that or trying to fight a hopeless battle?
Don’t be ridiculous. How would that increase the log odds of Earth’s survival?
My utility function isn’t up for grabs, either. If I regret my planet’s death then I regret it, and it’s beneath my dignity to pretend otherwise.
That said, I fought hardest while it looked like we were in the more sloped region of the logistic success curve, when our survival probability seemed more around the 50% range; I borrowed against my future to do that, and burned myself out to some degree. That was a deliberate choice, which I don’t regret now; it was worth trying, I would not have wanted to die having not tried, I would not have wanted Earth to die without anyone having tried. But yeah, I am taking some time partways off, and trying a little less hard, now. I’ve earned a lot of dignity already; and if the world is ending anyways and I can’t stop it, I can afford to be a little kind to myself about that.
In particular, the final sentence really does read like “I’m giving up to some extent”!
Okay, that is fair (but also I think it’s pretty bullshit to summarize the next section as “gave up” too).
Added a new section of the post that explicitly argues this point, repeating it here so people reading comments can see it more easily:
[edited to add] Eliezer does go on to say:
That said, I fought hardest while it looked like we were in the more sloped region of the logistic success curve, when our survival probability seemed more around the 50% range; I borrowed against my future to do that, and burned myself out to some degree. That was a deliberate choice, which I don’t regret now; it was worth trying, I would not have wanted to die having not tried, I would not have wanted Earth to die without anyone having tried. But yeah, I am taking some time partways off, and trying a little less hard, now. I’ve earned a lot of dignity already; and if the world is ending anyways and I can’t stop it, I can afford to be a little kind to myself about that.
I agree this means he’s “trying less heroically hard.” Someone in the comments says “this seems like he’s giving up a little”. And… I dunno, maybe. I think I might specifically say “giving up somewhat at trying heroically hard”. But I think if you round “give up a little at ” to “give up” you’re… saying an obvious falsehood? (I want to say “you’re lying”, but as previously discussed, sigh, no, it’s not lying, but, I think your cognitive process is fucked up in a way that should make you sit-bolt-upright-in-alarm.)
I think it is a toxic worldview to think that someone should be trying maximally hard, to a degree that burns their future capacity, and that to shift from that to “work at a sustainable rate while recovering from burnout for a bit” count as “giving up.” No. Jesus Christ no. Fuck that worldview.
(I do notice that what I’m upset about here is the denotation of “giving up”, and I’d be less upset if I thought people were simply saying “Eliezer/MIRI has stopped taking some actions” with no further implications. But I think people who say this are bringing in unhelpful/morally-loaded implications, and maybe equivocating between them)
(Separately, your comment and Lawrence’s are conflating “Eliezer” with “MIRI”. I don’t mind swapping back and forth between ‘Eliezer’s views’ and ‘MIRI’s views’ when talking about a lot of high-level aspects of MIRI’s strategy, given Eliezer’s huge influence here and his huge role in deciding MIRI’s strategy. But it seems weirder to swap back and forth between ‘what Eliezer is currently working on’ and ‘what MIRI is currently working on’, or ‘how much effort Eliezer is putting in’ and ‘how much effort MIRI is putting in’.)
As Alex Altair says above, I don’t think that it’s completely true that MIRI has given up. That being said, if you just include two more paragraphs below the ones you quoted from the Death with Dignity post:
In particular, the final sentence really does read like “I’m giving up to some extent”!
Okay, that is fair (but also I think it’s pretty bullshit to summarize the next section as “gave up” too).
Added a new section of the post that explicitly argues this point, repeating it here so people reading comments can see it more easily:
I agree with this.
(Separately, your comment and Lawrence’s are conflating “Eliezer” with “MIRI”. I don’t mind swapping back and forth between ‘Eliezer’s views’ and ‘MIRI’s views’ when talking about a lot of high-level aspects of MIRI’s strategy, given Eliezer’s huge influence here and his huge role in deciding MIRI’s strategy. But it seems weirder to swap back and forth between ‘what Eliezer is currently working on’ and ‘what MIRI is currently working on’, or ‘how much effort Eliezer is putting in’ and ‘how much effort MIRI is putting in’.)
Strongly upvoted. I am a bit annoyed that context was cut out when Raemon quoted the post.
Reading that segment in context gives me a different impression from reading just the segment.