I think that to a non-trivial extent, we have a limited supply of such efforts. The more times Terry has been contacted about this, the less likely he is to respond positively.
And to some extent I suppose this is true about reaching out to such figures more generally. Ie. maybe word gets out that we’ve been doing such outreach and by the time we contact John Doe, even if it’s our first time contacting John Doe, we may have exhausted our supply of John Doe’s patience.
So then, I don’t think such an action is as low cost as it may seem. It costs more than the time it takes to write the email.
What makes more sense to me is to try to traverse through social networks and reach him that way. Figure out which nodes are close to him who he listens to. Note that they might be bloggers like Scott Alexander or someone like Dan Luu. From there think about which of those nodes make sense to pursue. Maybe one, maybe multiple. Then backtrack and think about how we can utilize our current connections to reach those nodes.
I also think it’d be worth brainstorming more creative solutions with a bunch of yoda timers. I’ll try one right now.
Billboard ad.
Well put together video.
Figure out what sort of people have the skillset for this and pay them as consultants.
Be like Hermione and read books to educate ourselves first. Especially because it signals competence. Signals of incompetence could make someone like Terry be a lot more likely to reject us.
Research more directly whether stuff like this has been done before. Talk to people who have done it to see what advice they have.
Put a bounty on it. $50k to get a response from him.
Attach money to it. $50k to Terry to sit down and discuss this.
Start with (way) less prestigious people. Presumably they’re easier to reach and perhaps to convince. Then with a bunch of them working on it, higher prestige people would start to notice and be more easily convinced.
Some of these ideas seem pretty solid. My sense is that the best path forward is:
More brainstorming from the community.
Get in touch with various organizations (MIRI, CEA...) to see where they are at with this stuff.
Education. Figure out what academic fields/topics are relevant. Learn about them. Probably do some sort of write-up. Nothing too crazy, but I think the low hanging fruits should be addressed.
Decide on a path forward. I suspect that the initiatives should come from an organization like MIRI or CEA, because I assume people like Terry would be more likely to respond to representatives of decently prestigious organizations.
These are all good ideas, but I also think it’s important not to Chesterton’s Fence too hard. A lot of passionate people avoid doing alignment stuff because they assume it’s already been considered and decided against, even though the field doesn’t have that many people and much of its cultural capital is new.
Be serious, and deliberate, and make sure you’re giving it the best shot if this is the only shot we have, but most importantly, actually do it. There are not many other people trying.
These are a lot of good ideas. I comment above I think a good approach is to truly represent that we are a bunch of younger people who fear for the future...this would appeal to a lot of folks at his level, to know the kids are scared and need his help.
I think that to a non-trivial extent, we have a limited supply of such efforts. The more times Terry has been contacted about this, the less likely he is to respond positively.
And to some extent I suppose this is true about reaching out to such figures more generally. Ie. maybe word gets out that we’ve been doing such outreach and by the time we contact John Doe, even if it’s our first time contacting John Doe, we may have exhausted our supply of John Doe’s patience.
So then, I don’t think such an action is as low cost as it may seem. It costs more than the time it takes to write the email.
What makes more sense to me is to try to traverse through social networks and reach him that way. Figure out which nodes are close to him who he listens to. Note that they might be bloggers like Scott Alexander or someone like Dan Luu. From there think about which of those nodes make sense to pursue. Maybe one, maybe multiple. Then backtrack and think about how we can utilize our current connections to reach those nodes.
I also think it’d be worth brainstorming more creative solutions with a bunch of yoda timers. I’ll try one right now.
Billboard ad.
Well put together video.
Figure out what sort of people have the skillset for this and pay them as consultants.
Be like Hermione and read books to educate ourselves first. Especially because it signals competence. Signals of incompetence could make someone like Terry be a lot more likely to reject us.
Research more directly whether stuff like this has been done before. Talk to people who have done it to see what advice they have.
Put a bounty on it. $50k to get a response from him.
Attach money to it. $50k to Terry to sit down and discuss this.
Start with (way) less prestigious people. Presumably they’re easier to reach and perhaps to convince. Then with a bunch of them working on it, higher prestige people would start to notice and be more easily convinced.
Some of these ideas seem pretty solid. My sense is that the best path forward is:
More brainstorming from the community.
Get in touch with various organizations (MIRI, CEA...) to see where they are at with this stuff.
Education. Figure out what academic fields/topics are relevant. Learn about them. Probably do some sort of write-up. Nothing too crazy, but I think the low hanging fruits should be addressed.
Decide on a path forward. I suspect that the initiatives should come from an organization like MIRI or CEA, because I assume people like Terry would be more likely to respond to representatives of decently prestigious organizations.
This is a little rambly. Sorry. I’ll end here.
These are all good ideas, but I also think it’s important not to Chesterton’s Fence too hard. A lot of passionate people avoid doing alignment stuff because they assume it’s already been considered and decided against, even though the field doesn’t have that many people and much of its cultural capital is new.
Be serious, and deliberate, and make sure you’re giving it the best shot if this is the only shot we have, but most importantly, actually do it. There are not many other people trying.
Thanks for saying that. I think I needed to hear it.
These are a lot of good ideas. I comment above I think a good approach is to truly represent that we are a bunch of younger people who fear for the future...this would appeal to a lot of folks at his level, to know the kids are scared and need his help.