(I did not write a curation notice in time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to share why I wanted to curate this post! So I will do that here.)
Typically when I read a post by Paul, it feels like a single ingredient in a recipe, but one where I don’t know what meal the recipe is for. This report felt like one of the first times I was served a full meal, and I got to see how all the prior ingredients come together.
Alternative framing: Normally Paul’s posts feel like the argument step “J → K” and I’m left wondering how we got to J, and where we’ll go from K. This felt like one of the first times I got to go from A all the way to (say) P. I can see how the pieces fit together, and I have an interest in and a better perspective on where it might go on from P later.
There are many more positive things to say about this post. I am very excited by the way the post takes a relatively simple problem and shows, in trying to solve it, a great deal of the depth of the alignment problem. The smart vault example, story and art is very clear and fun. Explaining the methodology along with the steps of implementing it works really well to show how the methodology works. I love seeing how things like Iterated Amplification fit into the bigger solution. I find it thrilling every time the authors are like “let us make this wildly optimistic assumption, because even then we have a deadly counterargument”. I feel like for the first time I got to understand what seems weird and strange and interesting about some of Paul’s ideas, even ones that have been discussed before, because I saw them in the larger context, as thoughts that I myself would be very unlikely to think in that context. Etc.
Paul gives a 25% chance that he and Mark will see major progress which qualitatively changes their picture within a year, and seeing this post, the methodology, and all of the creative argumentative steps so far, I share this optimism, within the methodology that is being used here.
I am very excited by the way the post takes a relatively simple problem and shows, in trying to solve it, a great deal of the depth of the alignment problem.
FWIW I wouldn’t write this line today, I am now much more confused about what ELK says or means.
(I did not write a curation notice in time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to share why I wanted to curate this post! So I will do that here.)
Typically when I read a post by Paul, it feels like a single ingredient in a recipe, but one where I don’t know what meal the recipe is for. This report felt like one of the first times I was served a full meal, and I got to see how all the prior ingredients come together.
Alternative framing: Normally Paul’s posts feel like the argument step “J → K” and I’m left wondering how we got to J, and where we’ll go from K. This felt like one of the first times I got to go from A all the way to (say) P. I can see how the pieces fit together, and I have an interest in and a better perspective on where it might go on from P later.
There are many more positive things to say about this post. I am very excited by the way the post takes a relatively simple problem and shows, in trying to solve it, a great deal of the depth of the alignment problem. The smart vault example, story and art is very clear and fun. Explaining the methodology along with the steps of implementing it works really well to show how the methodology works. I love seeing how things like Iterated Amplification fit into the bigger solution. I find it thrilling every time the authors are like “let us make this wildly optimistic assumption, because even then we have a deadly counterargument”. I feel like for the first time I got to understand what seems weird and strange and interesting about some of Paul’s ideas, even ones that have been discussed before, because I saw them in the larger context, as thoughts that I myself would be very unlikely to think in that context. Etc.
Paul gives a 25% chance that he and Mark will see major progress which qualitatively changes their picture within a year, and seeing this post, the methodology, and all of the creative argumentative steps so far, I share this optimism, within the methodology that is being used here.
FWIW I wouldn’t write this line today, I am now much more confused about what ELK says or means.
Why? What changed in your understanding of ELK?