[update: now it’s a weak-downvote, see edit at bottom]
[update 2: I now regret writing this comment, see my reply-comment]
I endorse the general policy: “If a group of reasonable people think that X is an extremely important breakthrough that paves the path to imminent AGI, then it’s really important to maximize the amount of time that this group can think about how to use X-type AGI safely, before dozens more groups around the world start trying to do X too.”
And part of what that entails is being reluctant to contribute to a public effort to fill in the gaps from leaks about X.
I don’t have super strong feelings that this post in particular is super negative value. I think its contents are sufficiently obvious and already being discussed in lots of places, and I also think the thing in question is not in fact an extremely important breakthrough that paves the path to imminent AGI anyway. But this post has no mention that this kind of thing might be problematic, and it’s the kind of post that I’d like to discourage, because at some point in the future it might actually matter.
As a less-bad alternative, I propose that you should wait until somebody else prominently publishes the explanation that you think is right (which is bound to happen sooner or later, if it hasn’t already), and then linkpost it.
EDIT: Oh oops I wasn’t reading very carefully, I guess there are no ideas here that aren’t word-for-word copied from very-widely-viewed twitter threads. I changed my vote to a weak-downvote, because I still feel like this post belongs to a genre that is generally problematic, and by not mentioning that fact and arguing that this post is one of the exceptions, it is implicitly contributing to normalizing that genre.
Update: I kinda regret this comment. I think when I wrote it I didn’t realize quite how popular the “Let’s figure out what Q* is!!” game is right now. It’s everywhere, nonstop.
It still annoys me as much as ever that so many people in the world are playing the “Let’s figure out what Q* is!!” game. But as a policy, I don’t ordinarily complain about extremely widespread phenomena where my complaint has no hope of changing anything. Not a good use of my time. I don’t want to be King Canute yelling at the tides. I un-downvoted. Whatever.
How far does this go? Does this mean if I e.g. had stupid questions or musings about Q learning, I shouldn’t talk about that in public in case I accidentally hit upon something or provoked someone else to say something?
None of the things you mention seem at all problematic to me. I’m mostly opposed to the mood of “Ooh, a puzzle! Hey let’s all put our heads together and try to figure it out!!” Apart from that mood, I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong in this case, unless you’re in a position to personally find a new piece of the puzzle yourself. If you’re just chatting with no particular domain expertise, ok sure maybe you’ll inspire some idea in a reader, but that can happen when anyone says anything. :-P
Why I strong-downvoted
[update: now it’s a weak-downvote, see edit at bottom]
[update 2: I now regret writing this comment, see my reply-comment]
I endorse the general policy: “If a group of reasonable people think that X is an extremely important breakthrough that paves the path to imminent AGI, then it’s really important to maximize the amount of time that this group can think about how to use X-type AGI safely, before dozens more groups around the world start trying to do X too.”
And part of what that entails is being reluctant to contribute to a public effort to fill in the gaps from leaks about X.
I don’t have super strong feelings that this post in particular is super negative value. I think its contents are sufficiently obvious and already being discussed in lots of places, and I also think the thing in question is not in fact an extremely important breakthrough that paves the path to imminent AGI anyway. But this post has no mention that this kind of thing might be problematic, and it’s the kind of post that I’d like to discourage, because at some point in the future it might actually matter.
As a less-bad alternative, I propose that you should wait until somebody else prominently publishes the explanation that you think is right (which is bound to happen sooner or later, if it hasn’t already), and then linkpost it.
See also: my post on Endgame Safety.
EDIT: Oh oops I wasn’t reading very carefully, I guess there are no ideas here that aren’t word-for-word copied from very-widely-viewed twitter threads. I changed my vote to a weak-downvote, because I still feel like this post belongs to a genre that is generally problematic, and by not mentioning that fact and arguing that this post is one of the exceptions, it is implicitly contributing to normalizing that genre.
Update: I kinda regret this comment. I think when I wrote it I didn’t realize quite how popular the “Let’s figure out what Q* is!!” game is right now. It’s everywhere, nonstop.
It still annoys me as much as ever that so many people in the world are playing the “Let’s figure out what Q* is!!” game. But as a policy, I don’t ordinarily complain about extremely widespread phenomena where my complaint has no hope of changing anything. Not a good use of my time. I don’t want to be King Canute yelling at the tides. I un-downvoted. Whatever.
How far does this go? Does this mean if I e.g. had stupid questions or musings about Q learning, I shouldn’t talk about that in public in case I accidentally hit upon something or provoked someone else to say something?
None of the things you mention seem at all problematic to me. I’m mostly opposed to the mood of “Ooh, a puzzle! Hey let’s all put our heads together and try to figure it out!!” Apart from that mood, I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong in this case, unless you’re in a position to personally find a new piece of the puzzle yourself. If you’re just chatting with no particular domain expertise, ok sure maybe you’ll inspire some idea in a reader, but that can happen when anyone says anything. :-P
Could you explain this assessment please? I am not knowledgeable at all on the subject, so I cannot intuit the validity of the breakthrough claim.