(This seems false. I have made dozens of similar comments over the years, calling out people making overly doomy or dumb pessimistic predictions. I had also strong-upvoted nostralgebraists comment.
I of course think there are a bunch of dynamics in the space you are pointing to here, but I think the details you point in this comment are wrong. Everyone on the list you mention, me, Gwern, Zvi and Eliezer all frequently call out factual errors in people trying to make bad arguments for pessimism, and indeed I was among the most vocal critics of the AI bioterrorism work. If this is cruxy for you, I could dig up at least 3 examples for each of me, Gwern, Zvi and Eliezer, but would prefer not to spend the time.
Indeed in this very instance I had started writing a similar comment to nostalgebraist’s comments, and then stopped when I saw he basically made the right points.)
(This seems false. I have made dozens of similar comments over the years, calling out people making overly doomy or dumb pessimistic predictions. I had also strong-upvoted nostralgebraists comment.
I of course think there are a bunch of dynamics in the space you are pointing to here, but I think the details you point in this comment are wrong. Everyone on the list you mention, me, Gwern, Zvi and Eliezer all frequently call out factual errors in people trying to make bad arguments for pessimism, and indeed I was among the most vocal critics of the AI bioterrorism work. If this is cruxy for you, I could dig up at least 3 examples for each of me, Gwern, Zvi and Eliezer, but would prefer not to spend the time.
Indeed in this very instance I had started writing a similar comment to nostalgebraist’s comments, and then stopped when I saw he basically made the right points.)