Suppose you read Svante Arrhenius’ prediction of global warming from greenhouse gases, and you get swept up in the clarity of the exposition. Do you evaluate the content of the paper on its own merits? God no.
(No-sarcasm mode: I think that while criticism provides an opportunity to test a work, direct evaluation is still best. Among other problems, what happens in the inevitable case that someone tries to fake all the signs of their argument having successfully repelled criticism? Shit becomes he-said-she-said awful fast if you don’t do direct evaluations.)
By direct evaluation I mean just evaluating things (both claims and criticisms) using your own brainpower and basic resources that you harness to figure out the truth.
In the case of Svante Arrhenius, this means reading through the paper carefully, looking for math mistakes and important assumptions, and checking these assumptions against external references (e.g. on CO2 spectra, human outputs, atmospheric composition). This can be done to any degree of thoroughness—the more thorough you are, the better evidence you get, but weak evidence is still evidence.
This is probably a lot easier to do for AI predictions than for global warming, or even just Arrhenius’ prediction.
Your own brainpower is overrated. Unless you suspect that politics has rotten the field completely, a large collection of experts will be more likely to find flaws than you on your own.
I agree with the checking against external references, though! Experts don’t do this enough, so you can add a lot of value by doing this.
Suppose you read Svante Arrhenius’ prediction of global warming from greenhouse gases, and you get swept up in the clarity of the exposition. Do you evaluate the content of the paper on its own merits? God no.
(No-sarcasm mode: I think that while criticism provides an opportunity to test a work, direct evaluation is still best. Among other problems, what happens in the inevitable case that someone tries to fake all the signs of their argument having successfully repelled criticism? Shit becomes he-said-she-said awful fast if you don’t do direct evaluations.)
The problem is in things like AI predictions, where direct evaluations aren’t easy to come by.
By direct evaluation I mean just evaluating things (both claims and criticisms) using your own brainpower and basic resources that you harness to figure out the truth.
In the case of Svante Arrhenius, this means reading through the paper carefully, looking for math mistakes and important assumptions, and checking these assumptions against external references (e.g. on CO2 spectra, human outputs, atmospheric composition). This can be done to any degree of thoroughness—the more thorough you are, the better evidence you get, but weak evidence is still evidence.
This is probably a lot easier to do for AI predictions than for global warming, or even just Arrhenius’ prediction.
Your own brainpower is overrated. Unless you suspect that politics has rotten the field completely, a large collection of experts will be more likely to find flaws than you on your own.
I agree with the checking against external references, though! Experts don’t do this enough, so you can add a lot of value by doing this.