I often search through the Alignment Newsletter database to find the exact title of a relevant post (so that I can link to it in a new summary), often reading through the summary and opinion to make sure it is the post I’m thinking of.
Frequently, I read the summary normally, then read the first line or two of the opinion and immediately realize that it wasn’t written by me.
This is kinda interesting, because I often don’t know what tipped me off—I just get a sense of “it doesn’t sound like me”. Notably, I usually do agree with the opinion, so it isn’t about stating things I don’t believe. Nonetheless, it isn’t purely about personal writing styles, because I don’t get this sense when reading the summary.
(No particular point here, just an interesting observation)
How confident are you that this isn’t just memory? I personally think that upon rereading writing, it feels significantly more familiar if i wrote it, than if I read and edited it. A piece of this is likely style, but I think much of it is the memory of having generated and more closely considered it.
It’s plausible, though note I’ve probably summarized over a thousand things at this point so this is quite a demand on memory.
But even so it still doesn’t explain why I don’t notice while reading the summary but do notice while reading the opinion. (Both the summary and opinion were written by someone else in the motivating example, but I only noticed from the opinion.)
But even so it still doesn’t explain why I don’t notice while reading the summary but do notice while reading the opinion. (Both the summary and opinion were written by someone else in the motivating example, but I only noticed from the opinion.)
Ah, this helps clarify. My hypotheses are then:
Even if you “agree” with an opinion, perhaps you’re highly attuned, but in a possibly not straightforward conscious way, to even mild (e.g. 0.1%) levels of disagreement.
Maybe the word choice you use for summaries is much more similar to others vs the word choice you use for opinions.
Perhaps there’s just a time lag, such that you’re starting to feel like a summary isn’t written by you but only realize by the time you get to the later opinion.
I often search through the Alignment Newsletter database to find the exact title of a relevant post (so that I can link to it in a new summary), often reading through the summary and opinion to make sure it is the post I’m thinking of.
Frequently, I read the summary normally, then read the first line or two of the opinion and immediately realize that it wasn’t written by me.
This is kinda interesting, because I often don’t know what tipped me off—I just get a sense of “it doesn’t sound like me”. Notably, I usually do agree with the opinion, so it isn’t about stating things I don’t believe. Nonetheless, it isn’t purely about personal writing styles, because I don’t get this sense when reading the summary.
(No particular point here, just an interesting observation)
(This shortform prompted by going through this experience with Embedded Agency via Abstraction)
This?:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PwWbWZ6FPqAgZWOoOcXM8N_tUCuxpEyMbN1NYYC02aM/edit#gid=0
Or something in here?:
http://rohinshah.com/alignment-newsletter/
Yes (or more specifically, the private version from which that public one is automatically created).
How confident are you that this isn’t just memory? I personally think that upon rereading writing, it feels significantly more familiar if i wrote it, than if I read and edited it. A piece of this is likely style, but I think much of it is the memory of having generated and more closely considered it.
It’s plausible, though note I’ve probably summarized over a thousand things at this point so this is quite a demand on memory.
But even so it still doesn’t explain why I don’t notice while reading the summary but do notice while reading the opinion. (Both the summary and opinion were written by someone else in the motivating example, but I only noticed from the opinion.)
Ah, this helps clarify. My hypotheses are then:
Even if you “agree” with an opinion, perhaps you’re highly attuned, but in a possibly not straightforward conscious way, to even mild (e.g. 0.1%) levels of disagreement.
Maybe the word choice you use for summaries is much more similar to others vs the word choice you use for opinions.
Perhaps there’s just a time lag, such that you’re starting to feel like a summary isn’t written by you but only realize by the time you get to the later opinion.
#3 feels testable if you’re so inclined.
(Not that inclined currently, but I do agree that all of these hypotheses are plausible)