Adding a datapoint here: I’ve been involved in the Control AI campaign, which was run by Andrea Miotti (who also works at Conjecture). Before joining, I had heard some integrity/honesty concerns about Conjecture. So when I decided to join, I decided to be on the lookout for any instances of lying/deception/misleadingness/poor integrity. (Sidenote: At the time, I was also wondering whether Control AI was just essentially a vessel to do Conjecture’s bidding. I have updated against this– Control AI reflects Andrea’s vision. My impression is that Conjecture folks other than Andrea have basically no influence over what Control AI does, unless they convince Andrea to do something.)
I’ve been impressed by Andrea’s integrity and honesty. I was worried that the campaign might have some sort of “how do we win, even if it misleads people” vibe (in which case I would’ve protested or left), but there was constantly a strong sense of “are we saying things that are true? Are we saying things that we actually believe? Are we communicating clearly?” I was especially impressed given the high volume of content (it is especially hard to avoid saying untrue/misleading things when you are putting out a lot of content at a fast pace.)
In contrast, integrity/honesty/openness norms feel much less strong in DC. When I was in DC, I think it was fairly common to see people “withhold information for strategic purposes”, “present a misleading frame (intentionally)”, “focus on saying things you think the other person will want to hear”, or “decide not to talk at all because sharing beliefs in general could be bad.” It’s plausible to me that these are “the highest EV move” in some cases, but if we’re focusing on honesty/integrity/openness, I think DC scored much worse. (See also Olivia’s missing mood point).
The Bay Area scores well on honesty/integrity IMO, but has its own problems, especially with groupthink/conformity/curiosity-killing. I think the Bay Area tends to do well on honesty/integrity norms (relative to other spaces), but I think these norms are enforced in a way that comes with important tradeoffs. For instance, I think the Bay Area tends to punish people for saying things that are imprecise or “seem dumb”, which leads to a lot of groupthink/conformity and a lot of “people just withholding their beliefs so that they don’t accidentally say something incorrect and get judged for it.” Also, I think high-status people in the Bay Area are often able to “get away with” low openness/transparency/clarity. There are lots of cases where people are like “I believe X because Paul believes X” and then when asked “why does Paul believe X” they’re like “idk”. This seems like an axis separate from honesty/integrity, but it still leads to pretty icky epistemic discourse.
(This isn’t to say that people shouldn’t criticize Conjecture– but I think there’s a sad thing that happens where it starts to feel like both “sides” are just trying to criticize each other. My current position is much closer to something like “each of these communities has some relative strengths and weaknesses, and each of them has at least 1-3 critical flaws”. Whereas in the status quo I think these discussions sometimes end up feeling like members of tribe A calling tribe B low integrity and then tribe B firing back by saying Tribe A is actually low integrity in an even worse way.)
Adding a datapoint here: I’ve been involved in the Control AI campaign, which was run by Andrea Miotti (who also works at Conjecture). Before joining, I had heard some integrity/honesty concerns about Conjecture. So when I decided to join, I decided to be on the lookout for any instances of lying/deception/misleadingness/poor integrity. (Sidenote: At the time, I was also wondering whether Control AI was just essentially a vessel to do Conjecture’s bidding. I have updated against this– Control AI reflects Andrea’s vision. My impression is that Conjecture folks other than Andrea have basically no influence over what Control AI does, unless they convince Andrea to do something.)
I’ve been impressed by Andrea’s integrity and honesty. I was worried that the campaign might have some sort of “how do we win, even if it misleads people” vibe (in which case I would’ve protested or left), but there was constantly a strong sense of “are we saying things that are true? Are we saying things that we actually believe? Are we communicating clearly?” I was especially impressed given the high volume of content (it is especially hard to avoid saying untrue/misleading things when you are putting out a lot of content at a fast pace.)
In contrast, integrity/honesty/openness norms feel much less strong in DC. When I was in DC, I think it was fairly common to see people “withhold information for strategic purposes”, “present a misleading frame (intentionally)”, “focus on saying things you think the other person will want to hear”, or “decide not to talk at all because sharing beliefs in general could be bad.” It’s plausible to me that these are “the highest EV move” in some cases, but if we’re focusing on honesty/integrity/openness, I think DC scored much worse. (See also Olivia’s missing mood point).
The Bay Area scores well on honesty/integrity IMO, but has its own problems, especially with groupthink/conformity/curiosity-killing. I think the Bay Area tends to do well on honesty/integrity norms (relative to other spaces), but I think these norms are enforced in a way that comes with important tradeoffs. For instance, I think the Bay Area tends to punish people for saying things that are imprecise or “seem dumb”, which leads to a lot of groupthink/conformity and a lot of “people just withholding their beliefs so that they don’t accidentally say something incorrect and get judged for it.” Also, I think high-status people in the Bay Area are often able to “get away with” low openness/transparency/clarity. There are lots of cases where people are like “I believe X because Paul believes X” and then when asked “why does Paul believe X” they’re like “idk”. This seems like an axis separate from honesty/integrity, but it still leads to pretty icky epistemic discourse.
(This isn’t to say that people shouldn’t criticize Conjecture– but I think there’s a sad thing that happens where it starts to feel like both “sides” are just trying to criticize each other. My current position is much closer to something like “each of these communities has some relative strengths and weaknesses, and each of them has at least 1-3 critical flaws”. Whereas in the status quo I think these discussions sometimes end up feeling like members of tribe A calling tribe B low integrity and then tribe B firing back by saying Tribe A is actually low integrity in an even worse way.)