Agreed, the releases I’ve seen from Conjecture has made me incredibly hopeful of what they can achieve and interested in their approach to the problem more generally.
When it comes to the coordination efforts, I’m generally of the opinion that we can speak the truth while being inviting and ease people into the arguments. From my chats with Conjecture, it seems like their method is not “come in, the water is fine” but “come in, here are the reasons why the water is boiling and might turn into lava”.
If we start by speaking the truth “however costly it may be”and this leads to them being turned off by alignment, we have not actually introduced them to truth but have achieved the opposite. I’m left with a sense that their coordination efforts are quite promising and follow this line of thinking, though this might be a knowledge gap from my side (I know of 3-5 of their coordination efforts). I’m looking forward to seeing more posts about this work, though.
As per the product side, the goal is not to be profitable fast, it is to be attractive to non-alignment investors (e.g. AirBnB is not profitable). I agree with the risks, of course. I can see something like Loom branching out (haha) as a valuable writing tool with medium risk. Conjecture’s corporate structure and core team alignment seems to be quite protective of a product branch being positive, though money always have unintended consequences.
I have been a big fan of the “new agendas” agenda and I look forward to read about their unified research agenda! The candidness of their contribution to the alignment problem has also updated me positively on Conjecture and the organization-building startup costs seems invaluable and inevitable. Godspeed.
Agreed, the releases I’ve seen from Conjecture has made me incredibly hopeful of what they can achieve and interested in their approach to the problem more generally.
When it comes to the coordination efforts, I’m generally of the opinion that we can speak the truth while being inviting and ease people into the arguments. From my chats with Conjecture, it seems like their method is not “come in, the water is fine” but “come in, here are the reasons why the water is boiling and might turn into lava”.
If we start by speaking the truth “however costly it may be” and this leads to them being turned off by alignment, we have not actually introduced them to truth but have achieved the opposite. I’m left with a sense that their coordination efforts are quite promising and follow this line of thinking, though this might be a knowledge gap from my side (I know of 3-5 of their coordination efforts). I’m looking forward to seeing more posts about this work, though.
As per the product side, the goal is not to be profitable fast, it is to be attractive to non-alignment investors (e.g. AirBnB is not profitable). I agree with the risks, of course. I can see something like Loom branching out (haha) as a valuable writing tool with medium risk. Conjecture’s corporate structure and core team alignment seems to be quite protective of a product branch being positive, though money always have unintended consequences.
I have been a big fan of the “new agendas” agenda and I look forward to read about their unified research agenda! The candidness of their contribution to the alignment problem has also updated me positively on Conjecture and the organization-building startup costs seems invaluable and inevitable. Godspeed.