I think the April fool’s day element is extremely neglected in this discussion. E was trying to be provocative, not putting forth an ironclad proposal.
I find it possible but pretty unlikely that he was trying to be provocative. Maybe he pushed things a little bit with the provocativeness, but I’d be quite surprised if it turned out to be more than “just a little bit”.
I’m thinking about what he wrote in the post about consequentialism. Being provocative is unvirtuous, in the sense that it is lying to/misleading people. Maybe that is ok because the ends justify the means? Possibly, but Eliezer warns quite strongly against that sort of reasoning. He also talks about how the reputation of the alignment community is pretty important. Being provocative hurts this reputation. And his own personal reputation, which is similarly important. Plus he just seems to have a very strong fondness for the truth, and not stretching it, probably moreso than anyone else I can think of.
I judge that he would be willing to go against these principles in theory, but it would have to be a pretty extreme and clear cut case, and we don’t seem to be in that ballpark here.
I think the April fool’s day element is extremely neglected in this discussion. E was trying to be provocative, not putting forth an ironclad proposal.
Recently Eliezer has used the dying with dignity frame a lot outside his April 1st day post. So while some parts of that post may have been a joke, the dying with dignity part was not. For example: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11AY2jUu7X2wJj8cqdA_Ri78y2MU5LS0dT5QrhO2jhzQ/edit?usp=drivesdk
If you have specific examples where you think I took something too seriously that was meant to be a joke, I’d be curious to see those.
It seems this isn’t true, excepting only the title and the concluding question. FWIW this wasn’t at all obvious to me either.
Thanks for following up and clarifying!
I find it possible but pretty unlikely that he was trying to be provocative. Maybe he pushed things a little bit with the provocativeness, but I’d be quite surprised if it turned out to be more than “just a little bit”.
I’m thinking about what he wrote in the post about consequentialism. Being provocative is unvirtuous, in the sense that it is lying to/misleading people. Maybe that is ok because the ends justify the means? Possibly, but Eliezer warns quite strongly against that sort of reasoning. He also talks about how the reputation of the alignment community is pretty important. Being provocative hurts this reputation. And his own personal reputation, which is similarly important. Plus he just seems to have a very strong fondness for the truth, and not stretching it, probably moreso than anyone else I can think of.
I judge that he would be willing to go against these principles in theory, but it would have to be a pretty extreme and clear cut case, and we don’t seem to be in that ballpark here.