I don’t see any relevant quote in the thing you linked. It says the following, which maybe is what you are referring to:
Later, at Harvard, Summers gave a speech suggesting that when when it comes to the individuals with the greatest aptitude in science, men could vastly outnumber women.
These topics have been discussed at length on LW and adjacent spaces. Yes, probably men have higher variance among many traits than women, causing them to be a larger fraction of almost any tail population. No, this has basically nothing to do with moral worth or anything you would use an unqualified term “inferior” for.
I never got the sense of this being settled science (of course given how controversial the claim would be hard for it to be settled for good), but even besides that, the question is: what does one do with that information?
Let’s put it in LW language: I think that a good anti-discrimination policy might indeed be “if you have to judge a human’s abilities in a given domain (e.g. for hiring), precommit to assuming a Bayesian prior of total ignorance about those abilities, regardless of what any exterior information might suggest you, and only update on their demonstrated skills. This essentially means that we shift the cognitive burden of updating on the judge rather than the judged (who otherwise would have to fight a disadvantageous prior). It seems quite sensible IMO, as usually the judge has more resources to spare anyway. It centers human opportunity over maximal efficiency.
Conversely, someone who suggests that “the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable” seems already to think that economics are mainly about maximal efficiency, and any concerns for human well being are at best tacked on. This is not a good ideological fit for OpenAI’s mission! Unless you think the economy is and ought to be only human well-being’s bitch, so to speak, you have no business anywhere near building AGI.
I never got the sense of this being settled science (of course given how controversial the claim would be hard for it to be settled for good), but even besides that, the question is: what does one do with that information?
He did not present it as settled science but as one of three hypotheses for why women may have been underrepresented in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions. The key implication of the hypothesis being true would be that having quotas for a certain amount of women in tenure positions is not meritocratic.
Conversely, someone who suggests that “the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable” seems already to think that economics are mainly about maximal efficiency, and any concerns for human well being are at best tacked on.
His position seems to be that the sentence was ironic. The word “impeccable” usually does not appear in serious academic or policy writing. The memo seems to be in response to a report that suggested that free trade will produce environmental benefits in developing nations. It was a way to make fun of a PR lie.
It’s actually related to what Zvi talked about as bullet biting. If you want to advocate the policies of the World Bank in 1991 on free trade, it makes sense to accept that this comes with negative environmental effects in some third-world countries.
Hm. I’d need to read the memo to form my own opinion on whether that holds. It could be a “Modest Proposal” thing but irony is also a fairly common excuse used to walk back the occasional stupid statement.
I’d need to read the memo to form my own opinion on whether that holds.
It seems generally bad form to criticize people for things without actually reading what they wrote.
Just reading a text without trying to understand the context in which the text exists is also not a good way to understand whether a person made a mistake.
I think what you wrote here is likely more morally problematic than what Summers did 30 years ago. Do you think that whenever someone thinks about your merits as a person a decades from now someone should bring up that you are a person who likes to criticize people for what they said without reading what they said?
While judgement can vary, I think this is about more than just judging a person morally. I don’t think what Summers said, even in the most uncharitable reading, should disqualify him from most jobs. I do think though that they might disqualify him, or at least make him a worse choice, for something like the OpenAI board, because that comes with ideological requirements.
EDIT: so best source I’ve found for the excerpt is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo. I think it’s nothing particularly surprising and it’s 30 years old, but rather than ironic it sounds to me like it’s using this as an example of things that would look outrageous but are equivalent to other things that we do and don’t look quite as bad due to different vibes. I don’t know that it disqualifies his character somehow, it’s way too scant evidence to decide either way, but I do think it updates slightly towards him being a kind of economist I don’t much like to be potentially in charge of AGI, and again, this is because the requirements are strict for me. If you treat AGI with the same hands off approach as we usually do normal economic matters, you almost assuredly get a terrible world.
That seems to be the publically available except. There’s the Harvard Magazine article I linked above that speaks about the context of that writing and how it’s part of a longer seven-page document.
Summers seems to have been heavy into deregulation three decades ago. More lately he seems to be supportive of minimum wage increases and more taxes for the rich.
I do think though that they might disqualify him, or at least make him a worse choice, for something like the OpenAI board, because that comes with ideological requirements.
While I would prefer people who are ideologically clear for adding a lot of regulations for AI, it seems to me that part of what Sam Altman wanted was a board where people who can clearly counted on to vote that way don’t have the majority.
Larry Summers seems to be a smart independent thinker whose votes are not easy to predict ahead and that made him a good choice as a board candidate on which both sides can agree.
Having him on the board could also be useful for lobbying for the AI safety regulation that OpenAI wants.
On the question of aptitude for science, Summers said this: “It does appear that on many, many different human attributes—height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability—there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means—which can be debated—there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population. And that is true with respect to attributes that are and are not plausibly, culturally determined. If one supposes, as I think is reasonable, that if one is talking about physicists at a top 25 research university, one is not talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean. And perhaps it’s not even talking about somebody who is three standard deviations above the mean. But it’s talking about people who are three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean in the one in 5,000, one in 10,000 class. Even small differences in the standard deviation will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out.”
Source (the article linked to in the axios article you cite)
Putting that aside, I don’t see what part of Zvi’s claim you think is taking things further than they deserve to be taken. It seems indisputably true that Summers is both a well-known bullet-biter[1], and also that he has had some associations with Effective Altruism[2]. That is approximately the extent of Zvi’s claims re: Summers. I don’t see anything that Zvi wrote as implying some sort of broader endorsement of Summers’ character or judgment.
If you disagree with something someone said, don’t include words that suggest that he said things he didn’t say. Don’t make false claims.
Don’t try to use links to opinions about what he said as sources but seek to link to the actual statements by the person and quote the passages you found offensive or a factual description of what’s actually said.
Sorry I said he thinks women suck at life the wrong way? Gotta say I’m disappointed that you’re just filing this under “well, technically women do have less variance”. That seems … likely to help paper over the likely extent of threat that can be inferred from his having used a large platform to announce this thing,
Wikipedia describes the platform in which he made the statements as “In January 2005, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Summers sparked controversy with his discussion of why women may have been underrepresented “in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions”. The conference was designed to be off-the-record so that participants could speak candidly without fear of public misunderstanding or disclosure later.”
There’s no reason to translate “we might have less women at top positions because of less variance in women” in such a context into “women suck at life”.
I’m saying I believe he believes it, based on his pattern of behavior surrounding when and how he made the claim, and the other things he’s said, and his political associations
His strongest political affiliations seem to be around holding positions in the treasury under Clinton and then being Director of the National Economic Council under Obama.
Suggesting that being associated with either of those Democratic administrations means that someone has to believe that “women suck at life” is strange.
I don’t see any relevant quote in the thing you linked. It says the following, which maybe is what you are referring to:
These topics have been discussed at length on LW and adjacent spaces. Yes, probably men have higher variance among many traits than women, causing them to be a larger fraction of almost any tail population. No, this has basically nothing to do with moral worth or anything you would use an unqualified term “inferior” for.
I never got the sense of this being settled science (of course given how controversial the claim would be hard for it to be settled for good), but even besides that, the question is: what does one do with that information?
Let’s put it in LW language: I think that a good anti-discrimination policy might indeed be “if you have to judge a human’s abilities in a given domain (e.g. for hiring), precommit to assuming a Bayesian prior of total ignorance about those abilities, regardless of what any exterior information might suggest you, and only update on their demonstrated skills. This essentially means that we shift the cognitive burden of updating on the judge rather than the judged (who otherwise would have to fight a disadvantageous prior). It seems quite sensible IMO, as usually the judge has more resources to spare anyway. It centers human opportunity over maximal efficiency.
Conversely, someone who suggests that “the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable” seems already to think that economics are mainly about maximal efficiency, and any concerns for human well being are at best tacked on. This is not a good ideological fit for OpenAI’s mission! Unless you think the economy is and ought to be only human well-being’s bitch, so to speak, you have no business anywhere near building AGI.
He did not present it as settled science but as one of three hypotheses for why women may have been underrepresented in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions. The key implication of the hypothesis being true would be that having quotas for a certain amount of women in tenure positions is not meritocratic.
His position seems to be that the sentence was ironic. The word “impeccable” usually does not appear in serious academic or policy writing. The memo seems to be in response to a report that suggested that free trade will produce environmental benefits in developing nations. It was a way to make fun of a PR lie.
It’s actually related to what Zvi talked about as bullet biting. If you want to advocate the policies of the World Bank in 1991 on free trade, it makes sense to accept that this comes with negative environmental effects in some third-world countries.
Hm. I’d need to read the memo to form my own opinion on whether that holds. It could be a “Modest Proposal” thing but irony is also a fairly common excuse used to walk back the occasional stupid statement.
It seems generally bad form to criticize people for things without actually reading what they wrote.
Just reading a text without trying to understand the context in which the text exists is also not a good way to understand whether a person made a mistake.
I think what you wrote here is likely more morally problematic than what Summers did 30 years ago. Do you think that whenever someone thinks about your merits as a person a decades from now someone should bring up that you are a person who likes to criticize people for what they said without reading what they said?
While judgement can vary, I think this is about more than just judging a person morally. I don’t think what Summers said, even in the most uncharitable reading, should disqualify him from most jobs. I do think though that they might disqualify him, or at least make him a worse choice, for something like the OpenAI board, because that comes with ideological requirements.
EDIT: so best source I’ve found for the excerpt is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo. I think it’s nothing particularly surprising and it’s 30 years old, but rather than ironic it sounds to me like it’s using this as an example of things that would look outrageous but are equivalent to other things that we do and don’t look quite as bad due to different vibes. I don’t know that it disqualifies his character somehow, it’s way too scant evidence to decide either way, but I do think it updates slightly towards him being a kind of economist I don’t much like to be potentially in charge of AGI, and again, this is because the requirements are strict for me. If you treat AGI with the same hands off approach as we usually do normal economic matters, you almost assuredly get a terrible world.
That seems to be the publically available except. There’s the Harvard Magazine article I linked above that speaks about the context of that writing and how it’s part of a longer seven-page document.
Summers seems to have been heavy into deregulation three decades ago. More lately he seems to be supportive of minimum wage increases and more taxes for the rich.
While I would prefer people who are ideologically clear for adding a lot of regulations for AI, it seems to me that part of what Sam Altman wanted was a board where people who can clearly counted on to vote that way don’t have the majority.
Larry Summers seems to be a smart independent thinker whose votes are not easy to predict ahead and that made him a good choice as a board candidate on which both sides can agree.
Having him on the board could also be useful for lobbying for the AI safety regulation that OpenAI wants.
Source (the article linked to in the axios article you cite)
Putting that aside, I don’t see what part of Zvi’s claim you think is taking things further than they deserve to be taken. It seems indisputably true that Summers is both a well-known bullet-biter[1], and also that he has had some associations with Effective Altruism[2]. That is approximately the extent of Zvi’s claims re: Summers. I don’t see anything that Zvi wrote as implying some sort of broader endorsement of Summers’ character or judgment.
See above.
https://harvardundergradea.org/podcast/2018/5/19/larry-summers-on-his-career-lessons-and-effective-altruism
If you disagree with something someone said, don’t include words that suggest that he said things he didn’t say. Don’t make false claims.
Don’t try to use links to opinions about what he said as sources but seek to link to the actual statements by the person and quote the passages you found offensive or a factual description of what’s actually said.
Wikipedia describes the platform in which he made the statements as “In January 2005, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Summers sparked controversy with his discussion of why women may have been underrepresented “in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions”. The conference was designed to be off-the-record so that participants could speak candidly without fear of public misunderstanding or disclosure later.”
There’s no reason to translate “we might have less women at top positions because of less variance in women” in such a context into “women suck at life”.
His strongest political affiliations seem to be around holding positions in the treasury under Clinton and then being Director of the National Economic Council under Obama.
Suggesting that being associated with either of those Democratic administrations means that someone has to believe that “women suck at life” is strange.