Sheesh. Wild conversation. While I felt Lex was often missing the points Eliezer was saying, I’m glad he gave him the space and time to speak. Unfortunately, it felt like the conversation would keep moving towards reaching a super critical important insight that Eliezer wanted Lex to understand, and then Lex would just change the topic onto something else, and then Eliezer just had to begin building towards a new insight. Regardless, I appreciate that Lex and Eliezer thoroughly engaged with each other; this will probably spark good dialogue and get more people interested in the field. I’m glad it happened.
For those who are time constrained and wondering what is in it: Lex and Eliezer basically cover a whole bunch of high-level points related to AI not-kill-everyone-ism, delving into various thought experiments and concepts which formulate Eliezer’s worldview. Nothing super novel that you probably haven’t heard of if you’ve been following the field for some time.
There were definitely parts where I thought Lex seemed uncomfortable, not just limited to specific concepts but when questions got turned around a bit towards what he thought. Lex started podcasting very much in the Joe Rogan sphere of influence, to the extent that I think he uses a similar style, which is very open and lets the other person speak/have a platform but is perhaps at the cost of being a bit wishy-washy. Nevertheless it’s a huge podcast with a lot of reach.
No, that was just a joke Lex was making. I don’t know the exact timestamps but in most of the instances where he was questioned on his own positions or estimations on the situation Lex seemed uncomfortable to me, including the alien civilisation example. At one point I recall actually switching to the video and Lex had his head in his hands, which body language wise seems pretty universally a desperate pose.
Pretty sure that’s just an inside joke about Lex being a robot that stems from his somewhat stiff personality and unwillingness to take a strong stance on most topics.
Yes. It was quite predictable that it would go this way based on Lex’s past interviews. My suggestion for Eliezer would be to quickly address the interviewer’s off-topic point and then return to the main train of thought without giving the interviewer a chance to further derail the conversation with follow-ups.
That’s a good suggestion. But at some point you have to let it die or wrap it up. It occurred to me while Eliezer was repeatedly trying to get Lex back onto the you’re-in-a-box-thinking-faster thought experiment: when I’m frustrated with people for not getting it, I’m often probably boring them. They don’t even see why they should bother to get it.
You have to know when to let an approach die, or otherwise change tack.
I agree, that in-the-box thought experiment exchange was pretty painful. I’ve seen people struggle when having to come up with somewhat creative answers on the spot like this before, so perhaps giving Lex several options to choose from would have at least allowed the exchange to conclude and convince some of the audience.
Sheesh. Wild conversation. While I felt Lex was often missing the points Eliezer was saying, I’m glad he gave him the space and time to speak. Unfortunately, it felt like the conversation would keep moving towards reaching a super critical important insight that Eliezer wanted Lex to understand, and then Lex would just change the topic onto something else, and then Eliezer just had to begin building towards a new insight. Regardless, I appreciate that Lex and Eliezer thoroughly engaged with each other; this will probably spark good dialogue and get more people interested in the field. I’m glad it happened.
For those who are time constrained and wondering what is in it: Lex and Eliezer basically cover a whole bunch of high-level points related to AI not-kill-everyone-ism, delving into various thought experiments and concepts which formulate Eliezer’s worldview. Nothing super novel that you probably haven’t heard of if you’ve been following the field for some time.
There were definitely parts where I thought Lex seemed uncomfortable, not just limited to specific concepts but when questions got turned around a bit towards what he thought. Lex started podcasting very much in the Joe Rogan sphere of influence, to the extent that I think he uses a similar style, which is very open and lets the other person speak/have a platform but is perhaps at the cost of being a bit wishy-washy. Nevertheless it’s a huge podcast with a lot of reach.
Like when at 1:03:31 he suggested that he was a robot trying to play human characters?
That kind of words make me think that there is something extremely worrisome and wrong with him.
No, that was just a joke Lex was making. I don’t know the exact timestamps but in most of the instances where he was questioned on his own positions or estimations on the situation Lex seemed uncomfortable to me, including the alien civilisation example. At one point I recall actually switching to the video and Lex had his head in his hands, which body language wise seems pretty universally a desperate pose.
Pretty sure that’s just an inside joke about Lex being a robot that stems from his somewhat stiff personality and unwillingness to take a strong stance on most topics.
Yes. It was quite predictable that it would go this way based on Lex’s past interviews. My suggestion for Eliezer would be to quickly address the interviewer’s off-topic point and then return to the main train of thought without giving the interviewer a chance to further derail the conversation with follow-ups.
That’s a good suggestion. But at some point you have to let it die or wrap it up. It occurred to me while Eliezer was repeatedly trying to get Lex back onto the you’re-in-a-box-thinking-faster thought experiment: when I’m frustrated with people for not getting it, I’m often probably boring them. They don’t even see why they should bother to get it.
You have to know when to let an approach die, or otherwise change tack.
I agree, that in-the-box thought experiment exchange was pretty painful. I’ve seen people struggle when having to come up with somewhat creative answers on the spot like this before, so perhaps giving Lex several options to choose from would have at least allowed the exchange to conclude and convince some of the audience.