I think none of these options reflect badly on anyone involved (getting everything exactly right the first time is an absurdly high standard), but I think A and B would be weak evidence against the importance of AI safety (assuming you’ve already conditioned on the size of the field, etc).
That depend on how much A and B. Even if a field was actually important, it would have some nonzero amount of A and B, so A and B would constitute (even weak) evidence only if it was more than what you’d expect conditional on the field being important. I think the changes you described in the parent comment are real changes and are not entirely due to C, but they’re not more than the changes I’d expect to see conditional on AI safety being actually important. Do you have a different sense?
I don’t think it depends on how much A and B, because the “expected amount” is not a special point. In this context, the update that I made personally was “There are more shifts than I thought there were, therefore there’s probably more of A and B than I thought there was, therefore I should weakly update against AI safety being important.” Maybe (to make A and B more concrete) there being more shifts than I thought downgrades my opinion of the original arguments from “absolutely incredible” to “very very good”, which slightly downgrades my confidence that AI safety is important.
As a separate issue, conditional on the field being very important, I might expect the original arguments to be very very good, or I might expect them to be very good, or something else. But I don’t see how that expectation can prevent a change from “absolutely exceptional” to “very very good” from downgrading my confidence.
Ok, I think I misinterpreted when you said “I think A and B would be weak evidence against the importance of AI safety”. My current understanding is you’re saying that if you think there is more A and B (at a particular point in time) than you thought (for the same time period), then you should become less confident in the importance of AI safety (which I think makes sense). My previous interpretation was if you hadn’t updated on A and B yet (e.g., because you neglected to consider it as evidence, or because you left the field early before any A and B could have happened yet and then came back), then upon updating on the existence of A and B you should now be less confident of the importance of AI safety than you were.
Now that’s hopefully cleared up, I wonder how you used to see the history of the arguments for importance of AI safety and what (e.g., was there a paper or article that) made you think there are fewer shifts than there actually are.
That depend on how much A and B. Even if a field was actually important, it would have some nonzero amount of A and B, so A and B would constitute (even weak) evidence only if it was more than what you’d expect conditional on the field being important. I think the changes you described in the parent comment are real changes and are not entirely due to C, but they’re not more than the changes I’d expect to see conditional on AI safety being actually important. Do you have a different sense?
I don’t think it depends on how much A and B, because the “expected amount” is not a special point. In this context, the update that I made personally was “There are more shifts than I thought there were, therefore there’s probably more of A and B than I thought there was, therefore I should weakly update against AI safety being important.” Maybe (to make A and B more concrete) there being more shifts than I thought downgrades my opinion of the original arguments from “absolutely incredible” to “very very good”, which slightly downgrades my confidence that AI safety is important.
As a separate issue, conditional on the field being very important, I might expect the original arguments to be very very good, or I might expect them to be very good, or something else. But I don’t see how that expectation can prevent a change from “absolutely exceptional” to “very very good” from downgrading my confidence.
Ok, I think I misinterpreted when you said “I think A and B would be weak evidence against the importance of AI safety”. My current understanding is you’re saying that if you think there is more A and B (at a particular point in time) than you thought (for the same time period), then you should become less confident in the importance of AI safety (which I think makes sense). My previous interpretation was if you hadn’t updated on A and B yet (e.g., because you neglected to consider it as evidence, or because you left the field early before any A and B could have happened yet and then came back), then upon updating on the existence of A and B you should now be less confident of the importance of AI safety than you were.
Now that’s hopefully cleared up, I wonder how you used to see the history of the arguments for importance of AI safety and what (e.g., was there a paper or article that) made you think there are fewer shifts than there actually are.