Richard Loosemore, one of the only people on LW who was qualified to talk about AI and willing to disagree with EY’s ideas
The last time he came around here, he basically wanted to say that the whole idea of AI risk is stupid because it depends on the assumption that AI is all about reinforcement learning, and reinforcement learning “obviously” can’t do anything scary. It didn’t seem to me that he defended any part of that very effectively, and he seemed disappointingly insistent on fighting strawmen.
I agree it’s a shame not to have more intelligent advocacy of diverse views, but it’s not clear to me that Richard Loosemore really contributed much.
(Also, it may be relevant that that comment of EY’s was voted to −18. If Richard L ran away because one prominent person was rude about him and got downvoted into oblivion for it .. well, maybe it’s sad but I don’t think we can blame it on LW groupthink.
timtyler, one of the other stars of LW
I would not have characterized him in that way. He wrote a lot, for sure, but I never found what he wrote very interesting. (Of course no one else is obliged to share my interests.)
The last time he came around here, he basically wanted to say that the whole idea of AI risk is stupid because it depends on the assumption that AI is all about reinforcement learning, and reinforcement learning “obviously” can’t do anything scary. It didn’t seem to me that he defended any part of that very effectively, and he seemed disappointingly insistent on fighting strawmen.
I agree it’s a shame not to have more intelligent advocacy of diverse views, but it’s not clear to me that Richard Loosemore really contributed much.
(Also, it may be relevant that that comment of EY’s was voted to −18. If Richard L ran away because one prominent person was rude about him and got downvoted into oblivion for it .. well, maybe it’s sad but I don’t think we can blame it on LW groupthink.
I would not have characterized him in that way. He wrote a lot, for sure, but I never found what he wrote very interesting. (Of course no one else is obliged to share my interests.)