Reminder that you have a moral obligation, every single time you’re communicating an overall justification of alignment work premised on slow takeoff, in a context where you can spare two sentences without unreasonable cost, to say out loud something to the effect of “Oh and by the way, just so you know, the causal reason I’m talking about this work is that it seems tractable, and the causal reason is not that this work matters.”. If you don’t, you’re spraying your [slipping sideways out of reality] on everyone else.
I think James was implicitly tracking the fact that takeoff speeds are a feature of reality and not something people can choose. I agree that he could have made it clearer, but I think he’s made it clear enough given the following line:
I suspect that even if we have a bunch of good agent foundations research getting done, the result is that we just blast ahead with methods that are many times easier because they lean on slow takeoff, and if takeoff is slow we’re probably fine if it’s fast we die.
And as for your last sentence:
If you don’t, you’re spraying your [slipping sideways out of reality] on everyone else.
It depends on the intended audience of your communication. James here very likely implicitly modeled his audience as people who’d comprehend what he was pointing at without having to explicitly say the caveats you list.
I’d prefer you ask why people think the way they do instead of ranting to them about ‘moral obligations’ and insinuating that they are ‘slipping sideways out of reality’.
IDK how to understand your comment as referring to mine.
I’m familiar with how Eliezer uses the term. I was more pointing to the move of saying something like “You are [slipping sideways out of reality], and this is bad! Stop it!” I don’t think this usually results in the person, especially confused people, reflecting and trying to be more skilled at epistemology and communication.
In fact, there’s a loopy thing here where you expect someone who is ‘slipping sideways out of reality’ to caveat their communications with an explicit disclaimer that admits that they are doing so. It seems very unlikely to me that we’ll see such behavior. Either the person has confusion and uncertainty and is usually trying to honestly communicate their uncertainty (which is different from ‘slipping sideways’), or the person would disagree that they are ‘slipping sideways’ and claim (implicitly and explicitly) that what they are doing is tractable / matters.
I’m not sure exactly what mesa is saying here, but insofar as “implicitly tracking the fact that takeoff speeds are a feature of reality and not something people can choose” means “intending to communicate from a position of uncertainty about takeoff speeds” I think he has me right.
I do think mesa is familiar enough with how I talk that the fact he found this unclear suggests it was my mistake. Good to know for future.
I’m on board with communicating the premises of the path to impact of your research when you can. I think more people doing that would’ve saved me a lot of confusion. I think your particular phrasing is a bit unfair to the slow takeoff camp but clearly you didn’t mean it to read neutrally, which is a choice you’re allowed to make.
I wouldn’t describe my intention in this comment as communicating a justification of alignment work based on slow takeoff? I’m currently very uncertain about takeoff speeds and my work personally is in the weird limbo of not being premised on either fast or slow scenarios.
Reminder that you have a moral obligation, every single time you’re communicating an overall justification of alignment work premised on slow takeoff, in a context where you can spare two sentences without unreasonable cost, to say out loud something to the effect of “Oh and by the way, just so you know, the causal reason I’m talking about this work is that it seems tractable, and the causal reason is not that this work matters.”. If you don’t, you’re spraying your [slipping sideways out of reality] on everyone else.
I think James was implicitly tracking the fact that takeoff speeds are a feature of reality and not something people can choose. I agree that he could have made it clearer, but I think he’s made it clear enough given the following line:
And as for your last sentence:
It depends on the intended audience of your communication. James here very likely implicitly modeled his audience as people who’d comprehend what he was pointing at without having to explicitly say the caveats you list.
I’d prefer you ask why people think the way they do instead of ranting to them about ‘moral obligations’ and insinuating that they are ‘slipping sideways out of reality’.
IDK how to understand your comment as referring to mine. To clarify the “slipping sideways” thing, I’m alluding to “stepping sideways” described in Q2 here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j9Q8bRmwCgXRYAgcJ/miri-announces-new-death-with-dignity-strategy#Q2___I_have_a_clever_scheme_for_saving_the_world___I_should_act_as_if_I_believe_it_will_work_and_save_everyone__right__even_if_there_s_arguments_that_it_s_almost_certainly_misguided_and_doomed___Because_if_those_arguments_are_correct_and_my_scheme_can_t_work__we_re_all_dead_anyways__right_
and from
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/m6dLwGbAGtAYMHsda/epistemic-slipperiness-1#Subtly_Bad_Jokes_and_Slipping_Sideways
I’m familiar with how Eliezer uses the term. I was more pointing to the move of saying something like “You are [slipping sideways out of reality], and this is bad! Stop it!” I don’t think this usually results in the person, especially confused people, reflecting and trying to be more skilled at epistemology and communication.
In fact, there’s a loopy thing here where you expect someone who is ‘slipping sideways out of reality’ to caveat their communications with an explicit disclaimer that admits that they are doing so. It seems very unlikely to me that we’ll see such behavior. Either the person has confusion and uncertainty and is usually trying to honestly communicate their uncertainty (which is different from ‘slipping sideways’), or the person would disagree that they are ‘slipping sideways’ and claim (implicitly and explicitly) that what they are doing is tractable / matters.
Excuse me, none of that is in my comment.
I’m not sure exactly what mesa is saying here, but insofar as “implicitly tracking the fact that takeoff speeds are a feature of reality and not something people can choose” means “intending to communicate from a position of uncertainty about takeoff speeds” I think he has me right.
I do think mesa is familiar enough with how I talk that the fact he found this unclear suggests it was my mistake. Good to know for future.
I’m on board with communicating the premises of the path to impact of your research when you can. I think more people doing that would’ve saved me a lot of confusion. I think your particular phrasing is a bit unfair to the slow takeoff camp but clearly you didn’t mean it to read neutrally, which is a choice you’re allowed to make.
I wouldn’t describe my intention in this comment as communicating a justification of alignment work based on slow takeoff? I’m currently very uncertain about takeoff speeds and my work personally is in the weird limbo of not being premised on either fast or slow scenarios.
I didn’t take you to be doing so—it’s a reminder for the future.
o7