Oh I see what’s happening. Sorry, I think my title was accidentally misleading.
My post wasn’t trying to contrast the efficiency of theoretical research vs. empirical research. I just wanted to talk about those inefficiencies in the context of theoretical work specifically, since that’s what MIRI does. (E.g. I wanted to focus on examples from theoretical research.)
Anyway, the point about the large search space is an important one, and I hadn’t been thinking of the inefficiencies coming from political consequences until you mentioned it.
A book about Einstein and Godel claims both of them were able to identify a problem that became suddenly relevant and trackable due to other developments. I think there are certain ‘game changers’ that reshape discovery space producing low-hanging fruits. But, I do not think these low hanging fruits stay there for long. The possibility of AGI and X-Risks made some of your examples relevant, and they were addressed shortly after those game changers arose. But otherwise, some of your points seem similar to those on the Einstein-Godel book I read.
It is more of a biography of their friendship. I don’t think is worth reading. I almost summarized all his conclusions of the matter, except he applies it in more detail to history of science.
Ok. But you did say relative inefficiency. Relative to what? And still, I think many of your low hanging fruits were retrospective. I’m not sure that they were really obviously important and easy to obtain before, say, 1995.
One easy fix would be to just could about inviting some young possibly relevant philosophers for dinner and saying “do you see these 2 equally fun abstract problems? this one is more relevant because impacts the future of humanity!”
Ok, then the mistaken interpretation was my fault, you weren’t relevantly using the theoretical/applied dimension anywhere.
About decision theory. Perhaps utility maximizers were pulled towards game theory and thence economics and more narrow minded areas, while decision theory end up being maximized for oddness sometimes. That is, people who could attend to low hanging fruits were on areas where the background assumptions were unpopular,while people who could—perhaps—understand the background assumptions couldn’t care less for utility.
Oh I see what’s happening. Sorry, I think my title was accidentally misleading.
My post wasn’t trying to contrast the efficiency of theoretical research vs. empirical research. I just wanted to talk about those inefficiencies in the context of theoretical work specifically, since that’s what MIRI does. (E.g. I wanted to focus on examples from theoretical research.)
Anyway, the point about the large search space is an important one, and I hadn’t been thinking of the inefficiencies coming from political consequences until you mentioned it.
A book about Einstein and Godel claims both of them were able to identify a problem that became suddenly relevant and trackable due to other developments. I think there are certain ‘game changers’ that reshape discovery space producing low-hanging fruits. But, I do not think these low hanging fruits stay there for long. The possibility of AGI and X-Risks made some of your examples relevant, and they were addressed shortly after those game changers arose. But otherwise, some of your points seem similar to those on the Einstein-Godel book I read.
Which book?
http://www.ams.org/notices/200707/tx070700861p.pdf
It is more of a biography of their friendship. I don’t think is worth reading. I almost summarized all his conclusions of the matter, except he applies it in more detail to history of science.
Ok. But you did say relative inefficiency. Relative to what? And still, I think many of your low hanging fruits were retrospective. I’m not sure that they were really obviously important and easy to obtain before, say, 1995.
One easy fix would be to just could about inviting some young possibly relevant philosophers for dinner and saying “do you see these 2 equally fun abstract problems? this one is more relevant because impacts the future of humanity!”
Relative to financial markets, to which I was analogizing.
Ok, then the mistaken interpretation was my fault, you weren’t relevantly using the theoretical/applied dimension anywhere.
About decision theory. Perhaps utility maximizers were pulled towards game theory and thence economics and more narrow minded areas, while decision theory end up being maximized for oddness sometimes. That is, people who could attend to low hanging fruits were on areas where the background assumptions were unpopular,while people who could—perhaps—understand the background assumptions couldn’t care less for utility.