Eliezer, in the world of AI safety, there are two separate conversations: the development of theory and observation, and whatever’s hot in public conversation.
A professional AI safety researcher, hopefully, is mainly developing theory and observation.
However, we have a whole rationalist and EA community, and now a wider lay audience, who are mainly learning of and tracking these matters through the public conversation. It is the ideas and expressions of major AI safety communicators, of whom you are perhaps the most prominent, that will enter their heads. The arguments lay audiences carry may not be fully informed, but they can be influential, both on the decisions they make and the influence they bring to bear on the topic. When you get on a podcast and make off-the-cuff remarks about ideas you’ve been considering for a long time, you’re engaging in public conversation, not developing theory and observation. When somebody critiques your presentation on the podcast, they are doing the same.
The utility of Quintin choosing to address the arguments you have chosen to put forth, off-the-cuff, to that lay audience is similar to the utility you achieve by making them in the first place. You get people interested in your ideas and arguments, and hopefully improve the lay audience’s thinking. Quintin offers a critical take on your arguments, and hopefully improves their thinking further.
I think it’s natural that you are responding as if you thought the main aim of this post was for Quintin to engage you personally in debate. After all, it’s your podcast appearance and the entire post is specifically about your ideas. Yet I think the true point of Quintin’s post is to engage your audience in debate—or, to be a little fanciful—the Eliezer Yudkowsky Homunculus that your audience now has in their heads.
By responding as if Quintin was seeking your personal attention, rather than the attention of your audience, and by explicitly saying you’ll give him the minimum possible amount of your attention, it implicitly frames Quintin’s goal as “summoning Eliezer to a serious debate on AI” and as chiding him for wasting your time by raising a public clamor regarding ideas you find basic, uninteresting, or unworthy of serious debate—though worthy of spreading to a less-informed mass audience, which is why you took the time for the podcast.
Instead, I think Quintin is stepping into the same public communications role that you were doing on the podcast. And that doesn’t actually demand a response from you. I personally would not have been bothered if you’d chosen to say nothing at all. I think it is common for authors of fiction and nonfiction to allow their audience and critics some space and distance to think through and debate their ideas. It’s rare to make a podcast appearance, then show up in internet comments to critique people’s interpretations and misinterpretations. If an audience gets to listen to an author on a podcast, then engage them in a lively discussion or debate, they’ll feel privileged for the attention. If they listen to the podcast, then create their own lively discussion in the author’s absence, they’ll stimulate each others’ intellects. If the author shows up just enough to expression dishumor at the discussion and suggest it’s not really worth his time to be there, they’ll feel like he’s not only being rude, but that he’s misunderstanding “why we’re all gathered here today.”
Personally, I think it’s fine for you to participate as you choose, but I think it is probably wiser to say nothing if you’re not prepared to fully engage. Otherwise, it risks making you look intellectually lazy, and when you just spent the time and energy to appear on a podcast and engage people on important ideas about an important issue, why then undermine the work you’ve just performed in this manner? Refusing to read something because it’s “kinda long” just doesn’t play as high-status high-IQ countersignalling. I don’t think that’s what you’re trying to do, but it’s what it looks like you’re trying to do at first glance.
It’s this disconnect between what I think Quintin’s true goal was in writing this post, and the way your response reframed it, that I think rubs some people the wrong way. I’m not sure about this analysis, but I think it’s worth articulating as a reasonable possibility. But I don’t think there is a definitive right answer or right thing to do or feel in this situation. I would like to see a vigorous but basically collegial discussion on all sides.
Just so we’re clear, I am meaning to specifically convey a thought to Eliezer, but also to “speak for” whatever component of the readership agrees with this perspective, and to try and drive theory and observation on the topic of “how should rationalists interact online” forward. I feel neutral about whether or not Eliezer personally chooses to reply or read this message.
Eliezer, in the world of AI safety, there are two separate conversations: the development of theory and observation, and whatever’s hot in public conversation.
A professional AI safety researcher, hopefully, is mainly developing theory and observation.
However, we have a whole rationalist and EA community, and now a wider lay audience, who are mainly learning of and tracking these matters through the public conversation. It is the ideas and expressions of major AI safety communicators, of whom you are perhaps the most prominent, that will enter their heads. The arguments lay audiences carry may not be fully informed, but they can be influential, both on the decisions they make and the influence they bring to bear on the topic. When you get on a podcast and make off-the-cuff remarks about ideas you’ve been considering for a long time, you’re engaging in public conversation, not developing theory and observation. When somebody critiques your presentation on the podcast, they are doing the same.
The utility of Quintin choosing to address the arguments you have chosen to put forth, off-the-cuff, to that lay audience is similar to the utility you achieve by making them in the first place. You get people interested in your ideas and arguments, and hopefully improve the lay audience’s thinking. Quintin offers a critical take on your arguments, and hopefully improves their thinking further.
I think it’s natural that you are responding as if you thought the main aim of this post was for Quintin to engage you personally in debate. After all, it’s your podcast appearance and the entire post is specifically about your ideas. Yet I think the true point of Quintin’s post is to engage your audience in debate—or, to be a little fanciful—the Eliezer Yudkowsky Homunculus that your audience now has in their heads.
By responding as if Quintin was seeking your personal attention, rather than the attention of your audience, and by explicitly saying you’ll give him the minimum possible amount of your attention, it implicitly frames Quintin’s goal as “summoning Eliezer to a serious debate on AI” and as chiding him for wasting your time by raising a public clamor regarding ideas you find basic, uninteresting, or unworthy of serious debate—though worthy of spreading to a less-informed mass audience, which is why you took the time for the podcast.
Instead, I think Quintin is stepping into the same public communications role that you were doing on the podcast. And that doesn’t actually demand a response from you. I personally would not have been bothered if you’d chosen to say nothing at all. I think it is common for authors of fiction and nonfiction to allow their audience and critics some space and distance to think through and debate their ideas. It’s rare to make a podcast appearance, then show up in internet comments to critique people’s interpretations and misinterpretations. If an audience gets to listen to an author on a podcast, then engage them in a lively discussion or debate, they’ll feel privileged for the attention. If they listen to the podcast, then create their own lively discussion in the author’s absence, they’ll stimulate each others’ intellects. If the author shows up just enough to expression dishumor at the discussion and suggest it’s not really worth his time to be there, they’ll feel like he’s not only being rude, but that he’s misunderstanding “why we’re all gathered here today.”
Personally, I think it’s fine for you to participate as you choose, but I think it is probably wiser to say nothing if you’re not prepared to fully engage. Otherwise, it risks making you look intellectually lazy, and when you just spent the time and energy to appear on a podcast and engage people on important ideas about an important issue, why then undermine the work you’ve just performed in this manner? Refusing to read something because it’s “kinda long” just doesn’t play as high-status high-IQ countersignalling. I don’t think that’s what you’re trying to do, but it’s what it looks like you’re trying to do at first glance.
It’s this disconnect between what I think Quintin’s true goal was in writing this post, and the way your response reframed it, that I think rubs some people the wrong way. I’m not sure about this analysis, but I think it’s worth articulating as a reasonable possibility. But I don’t think there is a definitive right answer or right thing to do or feel in this situation. I would like to see a vigorous but basically collegial discussion on all sides.
Just so we’re clear, I am meaning to specifically convey a thought to Eliezer, but also to “speak for” whatever component of the readership agrees with this perspective, and to try and drive theory and observation on the topic of “how should rationalists interact online” forward. I feel neutral about whether or not Eliezer personally chooses to reply or read this message.