If it’s true that p.b. said some pretty false things about what was stated at the meet-up (per Lanrian), and that James Miller did the same in the comments (per Gwern), then I think the OP (and overall discussion) probably shouldn’t be on the LW frontpage, at least until there’s been more fact-checking and insertion of corrections.
I think some of the info in the OP (if true!) is pretty valuable to discuss, but I really hate the idea of LW spreading false gossip and rumors about someone’s views. (Especially when it would have been relatively easy to check whether others at the meetup had the same recollection before posting.)
I mean even if Lanrian’s corrections are based on perfect recall, none of them would make any of my notes “pretty false”. He hedged more here, that warning was more specific, the AGI definition was more like “transformative AGI”—these things don’t even go beyond the imprecision in Sam Altman’s answers.
The only point were I think I should have been more precise is about the different “loss function”. That was my interpretation in the moment, but it now seems to me much more uncertain whether that was actually what he meant.
I don’t care about the frontpage, but if this post is seen by some as “false gossip and rumors about someone’s views” I’d rather take it down.
I don’t think that whether a post should be on the frontpage should be much influenced by what’s being said in its comments by a third party.
I don’t think I think we should be worried that something’s going to do harm by spreading less-than-perfectly-accurate recollections when it says up front “These notes are not verbatim [...] While note-taking I also tended to miss parts of further answers, so this is far from complete and might also not be 100% accurate. Corrections welcome.”. Lanrian’s alternate versions don’t seem so different to me as to make what p.b. wrote amount to “false gossip and rumors”.
I also don’t think I could easily have checked whether others at the meetup had the same recollection. I had to leave pretty much when Sam Altman did and I didn’t know anybody attending.
Fact of the matter is that gwern, NNOTM, Amateur and James Miller of the commenters so far seem to have attended the meetup and at least didn’t express any disagreements with my recollections, while Lanrian’s (well-intended and well-taken) corrections are about differences in focus or degree in a small number of statements.
My claims mostly relate to what Sam Altman said, in response to my question, in discussion room 1 after Altman’s official talk had ended. Why are you so confident that I have said false things about what he stated? Gwern was, I believe, just referring to what Altman said in his official talk. You should have a very high standard of proof before you accuse someone of saying “pretty false things”.
I think people irrationally reject evidence that aliens are UFOs. Pilots have reported that they feared disclosing what they had seen UFOs do because no one would believe them. Ironically, If my version of what Altman said is true, we have a case here where I’m being falsely accused of spreading false information for accurately reporting that a hyper-high status person thinks UFOs are likely aliens. Something about UFOs causes normally rational people to jump to the conclusion that anyone offering evidence for the alien hypothesis is either lying, deluded, or a fool.
If it’s true that p.b. said some pretty false things about what was stated at the meet-up (per Lanrian), and that James Miller did the same in the comments (per Gwern), then I think the OP (and overall discussion) probably shouldn’t be on the LW frontpage, at least until there’s been more fact-checking and insertion of corrections.
I think some of the info in the OP (if true!) is pretty valuable to discuss, but I really hate the idea of LW spreading false gossip and rumors about someone’s views. (Especially when it would have been relatively easy to check whether others at the meetup had the same recollection before posting.)
I mean even if Lanrian’s corrections are based on perfect recall, none of them would make any of my notes “pretty false”. He hedged more here, that warning was more specific, the AGI definition was more like “transformative AGI”—these things don’t even go beyond the imprecision in Sam Altman’s answers.
The only point were I think I should have been more precise is about the different “loss function”. That was my interpretation in the moment, but it now seems to me much more uncertain whether that was actually what he meant.
I don’t care about the frontpage, but if this post is seen by some as “false gossip and rumors about someone’s views” I’d rather take it down.
I don’t think that whether a post should be on the frontpage should be much influenced by what’s being said in its comments by a third party.
I don’t think I think we should be worried that something’s going to do harm by spreading less-than-perfectly-accurate recollections when it says up front “These notes are not verbatim [...] While note-taking I also tended to miss parts of further answers, so this is far from complete and might also not be 100% accurate. Corrections welcome.”. Lanrian’s alternate versions don’t seem so different to me as to make what p.b. wrote amount to “false gossip and rumors”.
Everything in the OP matches my memory / my notes, within the level of noise I would expect from my memory / my notes.
I also don’t think I could easily have checked whether others at the meetup had the same recollection. I had to leave pretty much when Sam Altman did and I didn’t know anybody attending.
Fact of the matter is that gwern, NNOTM, Amateur and James Miller of the commenters so far seem to have attended the meetup and at least didn’t express any disagreements with my recollections, while Lanrian’s (well-intended and well-taken) corrections are about differences in focus or degree in a small number of statements.
Which of my notes would you classify as “pretty false”?
My claims mostly relate to what Sam Altman said, in response to my question, in discussion room 1 after Altman’s official talk had ended. Why are you so confident that I have said false things about what he stated? Gwern was, I believe, just referring to what Altman said in his official talk. You should have a very high standard of proof before you accuse someone of saying “pretty false things”.
I think people irrationally reject evidence that aliens are UFOs. Pilots have reported that they feared disclosing what they had seen UFOs do because no one would believe them. Ironically, If my version of what Altman said is true, we have a case here where I’m being falsely accused of spreading false information for accurately reporting that a hyper-high status person thinks UFOs are likely aliens. Something about UFOs causes normally rational people to jump to the conclusion that anyone offering evidence for the alien hypothesis is either lying, deluded, or a fool.