Some ideas I might have expected to see: fuzzies vs utilons, demandingness objection, conflict vs mistake, long/heavy tails, revealed preferences, forward/backward chaining, cargo culting
Nice initiative, and great list! I like to think I've been around for a while, and I still found it pretty helpful just reading up on all the terms I wasn't familiar with. Also has the side benefit of giving a strong flavour of what you're trying to do.
I think EA often comes with a certain kind of ontology (consequentialism, utilitarianism, generally thinking in terms of individuals) which is kind of reflected in the top-level problems given here (from the first list: persuasion, human power concentration, AI character and welfare) - not just the focus but the framing of what the problem even is.
I think there are nearby problems which are best understood from a slightly different ontology - how AI will affect cultural development, the shifting of power from individuals to emergent structures, what the possible shapes of identity for AIs even are - where coming in with too much of a utilitarian perspective could even be actively counterproductive
There's an awkward dance here where adding a bunch of people to these areas who are mostly coming from that perspective could really warp the discussion, even if everyone is individually pretty reasonable and trying to seek the truth
To be fair to Will, I'm sort of saying this with my gradual disempowerment hat on, which is something he gives later as an example of a thing that it would be good for people to think about more. But still, speaking as someone who is working on a few of these topics, if I could press a button that doubled the number of people in all these areas but all of the new people skewed consequentialist, I don't think I'd want to.
I guess the upshot is that if anyone feels like trying to shepherd EAs into working on this stuff, I'd encourage them to spend some time thinking about what common blindspots EAs might have.
I'd quite like to help read some of these. I strongly agree that a table read of the MIRI conversations would be good: given their conversational nature I think a lot of people would find them easier to approach as a recording than as a text log.
Also, my impression is that the Fable of the Dragon Tyrant got a lot out of having a nice video version. If the recordings go well it might be worth considering commissioning an accompanying video for the top prize winner at least.
Some ideas I might have expected to see: fuzzies vs utilons, demandingness objection, conflict vs mistake, long/heavy tails, revealed preferences, forward/backward chaining, cargo culting
Nice initiative, and great list! I like to think I've been around for a while, and I still found it pretty helpful just reading up on all the terms I wasn't familiar with. Also has the side benefit of giving a strong flavour of what you're trying to do.
Throwing in my 2c on this:
To be fair to Will, I'm sort of saying this with my gradual disempowerment hat on, which is something he gives later as an example of a thing that it would be good for people to think about more. But still, speaking as someone who is working on a few of these topics, if I could press a button that doubled the number of people in all these areas but all of the new people skewed consequentialist, I don't think I'd want to.
I guess the upshot is that if anyone feels like trying to shepherd EAs into working on this stuff, I'd encourage them to spend some time thinking about what common blindspots EAs might have.
I'd quite like to help read some of these. I strongly agree that a table read of the MIRI conversations would be good: given their conversational nature I think a lot of people would find them easier to approach as a recording than as a text log.
Also, my impression is that the Fable of the Dragon Tyrant got a lot out of having a nice video version. If the recordings go well it might be worth considering commissioning an accompanying video for the top prize winner at least.