I want to summarize what’s happened from the point of view of a long time MIRI donor and supporter:
My primary takeaway of the original post was that MIRI/CFAR had cultish social dynamics, that this lead to the spread of short term AI timelines in excess of the evidence, and that voices such as Vassar’s were marginalized (because listening to other arguments would cause them to “downvote Eliezer in his head”). The actual important parts of this whole story are a) the rationalistic health of these organizations, b) the (possibly improper) memetic spread of the short timelines narrative.
It has been months since the OP, but my recollection is that Jessica posted this memoir, got a ton of upvotes, then you posted your comment claiming that being around Vassar induced psychosis, the karma on Jessica’s post dropped in half while your comment that Vassar had magical psychosis inducing powers is currently sitting at almost five and a half times the karma of the OP. At this point, things became mostly derailed into psychodrama about Vassar, drugs, whether transgender people have higher rates of psychosis, et cetera, instead of discussion about the health of these organizations and how short AI timelines came to be the dominant assumption in this community.
I do not actually care about the Vassar matter per say. I think you should try to make amends with him and Jessica, and I trust that you will attempt to do so. But all the personal drama is inconsequential next to the question of whether MIRI and CFAR have good epistemics and how the short timelines meme became widely believed. I would ask that any amends you try to make also address that your comment also derailed these very vital discussions.
I want to summarize what’s happened from the point of view of a long time MIRI donor and supporter:
My primary takeaway of the original post was that MIRI/CFAR had cultish social dynamics, that this lead to the spread of short term AI timelines in excess of the evidence, and that voices such as Vassar’s were marginalized (because listening to other arguments would cause them to “downvote Eliezer in his head”). The actual important parts of this whole story are a) the rationalistic health of these organizations, b) the (possibly improper) memetic spread of the short timelines narrative.
It has been months since the OP, but my recollection is that Jessica posted this memoir, got a ton of upvotes, then you posted your comment claiming that being around Vassar induced psychosis, the karma on Jessica’s post dropped in half while your comment that Vassar had magical psychosis inducing powers is currently sitting at almost five and a half times the karma of the OP. At this point, things became mostly derailed into psychodrama about Vassar, drugs, whether transgender people have higher rates of psychosis, et cetera, instead of discussion about the health of these organizations and how short AI timelines came to be the dominant assumption in this community.
I do not actually care about the Vassar matter per say. I think you should try to make amends with him and Jessica, and I trust that you will attempt to do so. But all the personal drama is inconsequential next to the question of whether MIRI and CFAR have good epistemics and how the short timelines meme became widely believed. I would ask that any amends you try to make also address that your comment also derailed these very vital discussions.