I laughed out loud as I was scrolling down, and the third major section item was “Eliezer Yudkowsky”. And you even included a little biography, “According to “Eliezer, the person,” Eliezer Yudkowsky (born 1979) was an exceptionally bright kid”
I’m not sure if that was honestly intended to be a joke, or if I’m completely missing it.
Elevating him to the pantheon of history seems a bit premature as of yet; why not retitle the section with a summary of his contributions to thinking on AI risk? The same goes for Robin Hanson. I’m just picking on Eliezer because people accuse us of worshipping Eliezer, and this is exactly why.
I had a very similar reaction. I think the problem is that the tone of this piece is strongly reminiscent of a high school history textbook: Bostrom, Hanson, and Yudkowsky are talked about as if they are famous historical figures, and the growing awareness of AI risks is discussed like it’s a historical movement that happened hundreds of years ago. This tone is even more evident when Luke talks about Bostrom, Hanson, and especially Yudkowsky. Luke cites primary sources about Eliezer (e.g. his autobiography) and talks about his early life as if it’s historically noteworthy, and adds commentary on his works (e.g. “CFAI was both frustrating and brilliant”) in the same tone of voice that a history teacher would critique George Washington’s battle plans. It just comes off as baffling to me, and probably even more so to an outside audience.
I laughed out loud as I was scrolling down, and the third major section item was “Eliezer Yudkowsky”. And you even included a little biography, “According to “Eliezer, the person,” Eliezer Yudkowsky (born 1979) was an exceptionally bright kid”
I’m not sure if that was honestly intended to be a joke, or if I’m completely missing it.
Elevating him to the pantheon of history seems a bit premature as of yet; why not retitle the section with a summary of his contributions to thinking on AI risk? The same goes for Robin Hanson. I’m just picking on Eliezer because people accuse us of worshipping Eliezer, and this is exactly why.
I had a very similar reaction. I think the problem is that the tone of this piece is strongly reminiscent of a high school history textbook: Bostrom, Hanson, and Yudkowsky are talked about as if they are famous historical figures, and the growing awareness of AI risks is discussed like it’s a historical movement that happened hundreds of years ago. This tone is even more evident when Luke talks about Bostrom, Hanson, and especially Yudkowsky. Luke cites primary sources about Eliezer (e.g. his autobiography) and talks about his early life as if it’s historically noteworthy, and adds commentary on his works (e.g. “CFAI was both frustrating and brilliant”) in the same tone of voice that a history teacher would critique George Washington’s battle plans. It just comes off as baffling to me, and probably even more so to an outside audience.
It’d be a little more obvious if the understatement was more exaggerated, eg. just ‘was a bright kid’.