For the record, I never said I disagreed with the people from Givewell. I don’t, my charity of choice is currently Village Reach. I merely disagree with Baez when he says we should not maximise expected utility. I would be very surprised to find Robin Hanson making the same mistake (if I did I would seriously re-think my own position, and possibly lower my respect for Hanson significantly).
Please stop trying to view the world in just two sides, Hanson’s arguments are arguments that the probability of a singularity (as Eliezer sees it) is low enough that an expected utility maximiser would not spend much time worrying about it (at least, I think that’s his point, all he explicitly argues is that the probability is low). His point is not, even slightly, an argument against the utility maximisation.
For the record, I never said I disagreed with the people from Givewell. I don’t, my charity of choice is currently Village Reach. I merely disagree with Baez when he says we should not maximise expected utility. I would be very surprised to find Robin Hanson making the same mistake (if I did I would seriously re-think my own position, and possibly lower my respect for Hanson significantly).
Please stop trying to view the world in just two sides, Hanson’s arguments are arguments that the probability of a singularity (as Eliezer sees it) is low enough that an expected utility maximiser would not spend much time worrying about it (at least, I think that’s his point, all he explicitly argues is that the probability is low). His point is not, even slightly, an argument against the utility maximisation.