There is no such clear-cut general rule wherein you are required to publish your results in a special ritual form to make an impact (in most cases, it’s merely a bureaucratic formality in the funding/hiring process; history abounds with informally-distributed works that were built upon, it’s just that in most cases good works are also published, ’cause “why not?”). There is a simple need for a clear self-contained explanation that it’s possible to understand for other people, without devoting a special research project to figuring out what you meant and hunting down notes on the margins. The same reason you are writing a book. Once a good explanation is prepared, there are usually ways to also “publish” it.
I agree with Nesov and can offer a personal example here. I have a crypto design that was only “published” to a mailing list and on my homepage, and it still got eighty-some citations according to Google Scholar.
Also, just because you (Eliezer) don’t like playing status games, doesn’t mean it’s not rational to play them. I hate status games too, but I can get away with ignoring them since I can work on things that interest me without needing external funding. Your plans, on the other hand, depend on donors, and most potential donors aren’t AI or decision theory experts. What do they have to go on except status? What Nesov calls “a bureaucratic formality in the funding/hiring process” is actually a human approximation to group rationality, I think.
That’s fair enough. In which case I can only answer that some things are higher-priority than others, which is why I’m writing that book and not a TDT paper.
There is no such clear-cut general rule wherein you are required to publish your results in a special ritual form to make an impact (in most cases, it’s merely a bureaucratic formality in the funding/hiring process; history abounds with informally-distributed works that were built upon, it’s just that in most cases good works are also published, ’cause “why not?”). There is a simple need for a clear self-contained explanation that it’s possible to understand for other people, without devoting a special research project to figuring out what you meant and hunting down notes on the margins. The same reason you are writing a book. Once a good explanation is prepared, there are usually ways to also “publish” it.
I agree with Nesov and can offer a personal example here. I have a crypto design that was only “published” to a mailing list and on my homepage, and it still got eighty-some citations according to Google Scholar.
Also, just because you (Eliezer) don’t like playing status games, doesn’t mean it’s not rational to play them. I hate status games too, but I can get away with ignoring them since I can work on things that interest me without needing external funding. Your plans, on the other hand, depend on donors, and most potential donors aren’t AI or decision theory experts. What do they have to go on except status? What Nesov calls “a bureaucratic formality in the funding/hiring process” is actually a human approximation to group rationality, I think.
That’s fair enough. In which case I can only answer that some things are higher-priority than others, which is why I’m writing that book and not a TDT paper.