I feel it’s worth pointing out that just because something should be, doesn’t mean it is. You state:
Your points seem to be that claims made by Eliezer and upheld by the SIAI don’t appear credible due to insufficient argument, and due to one person’s personality. You can argue all you want about how he is viewed. You can debate the published papers’ worth. But the two shouldn’t be equated.
I agree with the sentiment, but how practical is it? Just because it would be incorrect to equate Eliezer and the SIAI doesn’t meant that people won’t do it. Perhaps it would be reasonable to say that the people who fail to make the distinction are also the people on whom it’s not worth expending the effort trying to explicate the situation, but I suspect that it is still the case that the majority of people are going to have a hard time not making that equation if they even try at all.
The purpose of this article, I would presume to say, is that public relations actually does serve a valid and useful purpose. It is not a wasted effort to ensure that the ideas that one considers true, or at least worthwhile, are presented in the sort of light that encourages people to take them seriously. This is something that I think many people of a more intellectual bent often fail to consider; though some of us might actually invest time and effort into determining for ourselves whether an idea is good or not, I would say the majority do not and instead rely on trusted sources to guide them (with often disastrous results).
Again, it may just be that we don’t care about those people (and it’s certainly tempting to go that way), but there may be times when quantity of supporters, in addition to quality, could be useful.
We don’t disagree on any point that I can see. I was contrasting an ideal way of looking at things (part of what you quoted) from how people might actually see things (my three bullet-point questions).
As much as I enjoy Eliezer’s thoughts and respect his work, I’m also of the opinion that one of the tasks the SIAI must work on (and almost certainly is working on) is keeping his research going while making the distinction between the two entities more obvious. But to whom? The research community should be the first and primary target.
Coming back from the Summit, I feel that they’re taking decent measures toward this. The most important thing to do is for the other SIAI names to be known. Michael Vassar’s is the easiest to get people to hold because of the name of his role, and he was acting as the SIAI face more than Eliezer was. At this point, a dispute would make the SIAI look unstable—they need positive promotion of leadership and idea diversity, more public awareness of their interactions with academia, and that’s about it.
Housing a clearly promoted second research program would solve this problem. If only there was enough money, and a second goal which didn’t obviously conflict with the first, and the program still fit under the mission statement. I don’t know if that is possible. Money aside, I think that it is possible. Decision theoretic research with respect to FAI is just one area of FAI research. Utterly essential, but probably not all there is to do.
I feel it’s worth pointing out that just because something should be, doesn’t mean it is. You state:
I agree with the sentiment, but how practical is it? Just because it would be incorrect to equate Eliezer and the SIAI doesn’t meant that people won’t do it. Perhaps it would be reasonable to say that the people who fail to make the distinction are also the people on whom it’s not worth expending the effort trying to explicate the situation, but I suspect that it is still the case that the majority of people are going to have a hard time not making that equation if they even try at all.
The purpose of this article, I would presume to say, is that public relations actually does serve a valid and useful purpose. It is not a wasted effort to ensure that the ideas that one considers true, or at least worthwhile, are presented in the sort of light that encourages people to take them seriously. This is something that I think many people of a more intellectual bent often fail to consider; though some of us might actually invest time and effort into determining for ourselves whether an idea is good or not, I would say the majority do not and instead rely on trusted sources to guide them (with often disastrous results).
Again, it may just be that we don’t care about those people (and it’s certainly tempting to go that way), but there may be times when quantity of supporters, in addition to quality, could be useful.
We don’t disagree on any point that I can see. I was contrasting an ideal way of looking at things (part of what you quoted) from how people might actually see things (my three bullet-point questions).
As much as I enjoy Eliezer’s thoughts and respect his work, I’m also of the opinion that one of the tasks the SIAI must work on (and almost certainly is working on) is keeping his research going while making the distinction between the two entities more obvious. But to whom? The research community should be the first and primary target.
Coming back from the Summit, I feel that they’re taking decent measures toward this. The most important thing to do is for the other SIAI names to be known. Michael Vassar’s is the easiest to get people to hold because of the name of his role, and he was acting as the SIAI face more than Eliezer was. At this point, a dispute would make the SIAI look unstable—they need positive promotion of leadership and idea diversity, more public awareness of their interactions with academia, and that’s about it.
Housing a clearly promoted second research program would solve this problem. If only there was enough money, and a second goal which didn’t obviously conflict with the first, and the program still fit under the mission statement. I don’t know if that is possible. Money aside, I think that it is possible. Decision theoretic research with respect to FAI is just one area of FAI research. Utterly essential, but probably not all there is to do.