Hi Gordon. Thanks for reading the post. I agree completely that the right metrics are nowhere near sufficient for aligned AI — further I’d say that “right” and “aligned” have very complex meanings here.
What I am trying to do with this post is shed some light on one key piece of the puzzle, the actual practice of incorporating metrics into real systems. I believe this is necessary, but don’t mean to suggest that this is sufficient or unproblematic. As I wrote in the post, “this sort of social engineering at scale has all the problems of large AI systems, plus all the problems of public policy interventions.”
To me the issue is that large, influential optimizing systems already exist and seem unlikely to be abandoned. There may be good arguments that a particular system should not be used, but it’s hard for me to see an argument to avoid this category of technology as a whole. As I see it, the question is not so much “should we try to choose appropriate metrics?” but “do we care to quantitatively monitor and manage society-scale optimizing systems?” I believe this is an urgent need for this sort of work within industry.
Having said all that, you may be right that the title of this post overpromises. I’d welcome your thoughts here.
Hi Gordon. Thanks for reading the post. I agree completely that the right metrics are nowhere near sufficient for aligned AI — further I’d say that “right” and “aligned” have very complex meanings here.
What I am trying to do with this post is shed some light on one key piece of the puzzle, the actual practice of incorporating metrics into real systems. I believe this is necessary, but don’t mean to suggest that this is sufficient or unproblematic. As I wrote in the post, “this sort of social engineering at scale has all the problems of large AI systems, plus all the problems of public policy interventions.”
To me the issue is that large, influential optimizing systems already exist and seem unlikely to be abandoned. There may be good arguments that a particular system should not be used, but it’s hard for me to see an argument to avoid this category of technology as a whole. As I see it, the question is not so much “should we try to choose appropriate metrics?” but “do we care to quantitatively monitor and manage society-scale optimizing systems?” I believe this is an urgent need for this sort of work within industry.
Having said all that, you may be right that the title of this post overpromises. I’d welcome your thoughts here.