Eliezer ---
Do you think this analogy is useful for estimating the value of friendliness? That is, is the impact of humans on other species and our environment during this explosion of intelligence a useful frame for pondering the impact of a rapidly evolving AI on humans?
I think it has potential to be useful, but I’m not sure in which direction it should be read.
While we’ve driven some species toward extinction, others have flourished. And while I’m optimistic that as intelligence increases we’ll be better able to control our negative impacts on the environment, I’m also worried that as the scale of our impacts increases a single mistake could be fatal.
I agree, and vastly prefer yesterday’s post. Without intending to offend, the problem for me is that the ‘flashes of eloquence’ read more as ‘attempts at eloquence’. They fall short for me, and thus cause me to doubt the rest of the piece.
The first piece I read through from start to finish, and felt more able to evaluate it as a whole. For the second, the style was sufficiently jarring that I found myself doubting the argument phrase by phrase. I guess one could conclude that the second style helps to achieve a critical reading, but in the wild I’d never have bothered to read the whole thing.
The question is great, though, and the side-by-side presentation is a great test case. Is there one of these that you consider to be your native tone?