Let’s talk about a hypothetical physicist-turned-alignment researcher who, (for no particular reason), we’ll call John. This researcher needs to periodically repeat to himself that Only Physicists do Real Work, but also needs to write an Alignment Post-Mortem. Maybe he needs the Post-Mortem as a philosophical fig leaf to justify his own program lack of empirical grounding, or maybe he’s honestly concerned but not very good at seeing the Planck in his own eye. Either way, he meets with two approaches to writing critiques—let’s call them (again for no particular reason) “careful charitable engagement” and “provocative dismissal.” Both can be effective, but they have very different impacts on community discourse. It turns out that careful engagement requires actually understanding what other researchers are doing, while provocative dismissal lets you write spicy posts from your armchair. Lo and behold, John endorses provocative dismissal as his Official Blogging Strategy, and continues writing critiques. (Actually the version which eventually emerges isn’t even fully researched, it’s a quite different version which just-so-happens to be even more dismissive of work he hasn’t closely followed.)
hi John,
Let’s talk about a hypothetical physicist-turned-alignment researcher who, (for no particular reason), we’ll call John. This researcher needs to periodically repeat to himself that Only Physicists do Real Work, but also needs to write an Alignment Post-Mortem. Maybe he needs the Post-Mortem as a philosophical fig leaf to justify his own program lack of empirical grounding, or maybe he’s honestly concerned but not very good at seeing the Planck in his own eye. Either way, he meets with two approaches to writing critiques—let’s call them (again for no particular reason) “careful charitable engagement” and “provocative dismissal.” Both can be effective, but they have very different impacts on community discourse. It turns out that careful engagement requires actually understanding what other researchers are doing, while provocative dismissal lets you write spicy posts from your armchair. Lo and behold, John endorses provocative dismissal as his Official Blogging Strategy, and continues writing critiques. (Actually the version which eventually emerges isn’t even fully researched, it’s a quite different version which just-so-happens to be even more dismissive of work he hasn’t closely followed.)
Glad to hear you enjoyed ILIAD.
Best,
AGO