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Well, if you have read most of his lesswrong articles(like I have), its hard to not enjoy the way he speaks and writes about these things. But I totally get tha

Well, if you have read most of his lesswrong articles(like I have), its hard to not enjoy the way he speaks and writes about these things. But I totally get that it feels obtuse and unnecessarily complex to someone without good exposure to his http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/ writings.

andrewprock 11y ago
I think that's a big part of the disconnect. Unless you are a devotee of EY, you generally don't "get" him. I suspect that it's because he mostly operates in the echo chamber that is the "less wrong" community. In short, he generally does not get credit for what he knows and understands because he cannot communicate clearly with people who do not already know and understand his philosophy. Said another way, if you can't explain things to people unless they already understand you, then you can't explain things to people.
- noobiemcfoob 11y ago
  Yes, yes and more yes. I love his ideas and thoughts on many topics, but it always comes across as the person who was too busy being "brilliant" to learn how to interface well with the broader society. The sad part is that he really is brilliant.
  - armitron 11y ago
    No he's not, he's just skilled at manipulating people's perceptions of him based on a narrow set of premises that he introduced. Go through his non-philosophical papers and point to one thing in there that's brilliant. His miniscule technical output also seems to agree with this. I weep for the world that considers people like Yudkowsky brilliant.
    - noobiemcfoob 11y ago
      There are many definitions for "brilliant", though most of them heavily involve philosophy from my perspective. The easiest example of his work that I'd describe as brilliant is HPMOR. It is a story that makes the Harry Potter world not just bearable but beautiful and lively. There are portions where the philosophy comes on so thick as to disrupt the story, but on the whole it is a beautiful work. Reading it is how I first discovered EY.
      - p1esk 11y ago
        I haven't read HPMOR, and I haven't read Harry Potter books, but I watched the movies, and I think HP world is beautiful as is. What makes it unbearable for you?
- deleted 11y ago
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- rdbcasillas 11y ago
  Point taken. But there are some complex ideas that just need some amount of effort from the reader in order to "get" them. I don't know what is the right balance but if you are being introduced to new ideas, introduction of those ideas will also bring some vocabulary that you will (at least initially) be uncomfortable with. I guess I want to see someone communicate the ideas on less wrong in a simpler way without dumbing down or ignoring the nuances.
  - greenrd 11y ago
    I'm amused at the irony of users on a site devoted to technology, many of whom are probably software engineers, complaining about obscure jargon...
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  I don't get him at all. To me he looks like a Randian dilettante folk philosopher, with a minimal track record of practical achievement. His AI arguments seem to be of the "If you assume an AGI singularity is possible..." kind, which is suspiciously like assuming god exists, for completely arbitrary values of god, and then debating whether or not he cares enough to hate you. Most software today sucks so badly it can't tie its own shoelaces without poking itself in the brain and falling over. How do we know this isn't a general feature of software? Has there ever been a 100% bullet-proof non-trivial software system? Is there anything in the history of CS which implies that such a system is possible? So suggesting that by (say) 2066 software will not only stop sucking but will be able to meta-improve itself with bug-free perfection to the point where it can eat the world seems curiously ungrounded.
  - snowwrestler 11y ago
    You're right about the quality. But in addition AI, as we build it today, is task-oriented, not personality-oriented. People are trying to build cars that drives themselves where directed, not cars that decide whether or not they feel like driving people around at all. Now, maybe it's possible that a task-oriented AI will at some point develop a personality. But there is no evidence that such a thing is possible. The "real life" personalities we observe in nature--ourselves--did not evolve from task-oriented machinery. It was the opposite: personality and will is observable in even simple animals; a beetle directs its own actions and tries above all else to preserve its own life. No one sets a task for it. Where does a beetle get that self-direction? Well, what is life itself? Where did it come from? We find ourselves in very deep waters; the depths of which I think AI-fearing folks don't seem to appreciate.
    - greenrd 11y ago
      I don't think it is the case that "AI-fearing folks" like myself don't appreciate what the alleged difficulties of building AGI might be. Rather, the burden of proof is on you, the doubters, to show that we need to spend no money at all on such risks, despite the magnitude of the harm that would be caused if we're right and nothing is done about the risks.
throw12122 11y ago
Is this a cult? I enjoy the was Halmos and Feynman talk about things. I've never read anything interesting from Yudkowsky...
- Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
  I don't think it was a cult. LessWrong was an interesting place where interesting people gathered for a time; though LessWrong is basically on life support now. Gwern, Hal Finny, Wei Dai, Hannu Rajaniemi, Aaron Swartz, and Scott Alexander are some of the more well-known (outside of LessWrong) former members. It really was an interesting community for a while. There were meet-ups and Yudkowsky did solicit for his nonprofit, but it never seemed culty to me. And none of the people I mentioned ever seemed wary of criticizing Yudkowsky when they thought he was wrong. See, for example, Gwern's epic reply to Yudkowsky's post on automation: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_antifaq/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_a... This doesn't seem like the type of reply an entranced follower would give their guru. The fact that this very-critical comment got twice as many upvotes as the original post is telling of the attitude of the community as a whole.
  - greenrd 11y ago
    Worth noting that the community has spread out into a kind of "diaspora": some have gone into effective altruism (many retaining their AI risk beliefs, especially the ones in California); some have been hired to work on existential risks full-time; Scott Alexander now has his own (impressive) blog and some LWers still follow him there and go to meetups that he attends... Of course, it's also probably true that some have since graduated, got jobs and simply have less time to read and post stuff on the internet any more.
- dTal 11y ago
  Depends what you mean by "cult". They are a defined group of people that display a substantial amount of in-group closeness (google "lesswrong cuddle puddle" if you have the stomach for it), possessing unusual views, organised around a central leader figure, that believes the leader's worldview is superior. Poisoned kool-aid, however, is unlikely. Make of it what you will.
retbull 11y ago
I've read a lot of his work, but I don't think it needs to be as complex as it is. I am smart, well educated, and well read and I often have to pull out a dictionary to read what he writes. Maybe I just need to read more but I don't feel like he is trying to communicate his ideas only listen to himself speak.

andrewprock 11y ago

I think that's a big part of the disconnect. Unless you are a devotee of EY, you generally don't "get" him. I suspect that it's because he mostly operates in the echo chamber that is the "less wrong" community. In short, he generally does not get credit for what he knows and understands because he cannot communicate clearly with people who do not already know and understand his philosophy. Said another way, if you can't explain things to people unless they already understand you, then you can't explain things to people.

noobiemcfoob 11y ago
Yes, yes and more yes. I love his ideas and thoughts on many topics, but it always comes across as the person who was too busy being "brilliant" to learn how to interface well with the broader society. The sad part is that he really is brilliant.
- armitron 11y ago
  No he's not, he's just skilled at manipulating people's perceptions of him based on a narrow set of premises that he introduced. Go through his non-philosophical papers and point to one thing in there that's brilliant. His miniscule technical output also seems to agree with this. I weep for the world that considers people like Yudkowsky brilliant.
  - noobiemcfoob 11y ago
    There are many definitions for "brilliant", though most of them heavily involve philosophy from my perspective. The easiest example of his work that I'd describe as brilliant is HPMOR. It is a story that makes the Harry Potter world not just bearable but beautiful and lively. There are portions where the philosophy comes on so thick as to disrupt the story, but on the whole it is a beautiful work. Reading it is how I first discovered EY.
    - p1esk 11y ago
      I haven't read HPMOR, and I haven't read Harry Potter books, but I watched the movies, and I think HP world is beautiful as is. What makes it unbearable for you?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rdbcasillas 11y ago
Point taken. But there are some complex ideas that just need some amount of effort from the reader in order to "get" them. I don't know what is the right balance but if you are being introduced to new ideas, introduction of those ideas will also bring some vocabulary that you will (at least initially) be uncomfortable with. I guess I want to see someone communicate the ideas on less wrong in a simpler way without dumbing down or ignoring the nuances.
- greenrd 11y ago
  I'm amused at the irony of users on a site devoted to technology, many of whom are probably software engineers, complaining about obscure jargon...
TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
I don't get him at all. To me he looks like a Randian dilettante folk philosopher, with a minimal track record of practical achievement. His AI arguments seem to be of the "If you assume an AGI singularity is possible..." kind, which is suspiciously like assuming god exists, for completely arbitrary values of god, and then debating whether or not he cares enough to hate you. Most software today sucks so badly it can't tie its own shoelaces without poking itself in the brain and falling over. How do we know this isn't a general feature of software? Has there ever been a 100% bullet-proof non-trivial software system? Is there anything in the history of CS which implies that such a system is possible? So suggesting that by (say) 2066 software will not only stop sucking but will be able to meta-improve itself with bug-free perfection to the point where it can eat the world seems curiously ungrounded.
- snowwrestler 11y ago
  You're right about the quality. But in addition AI, as we build it today, is task-oriented, not personality-oriented. People are trying to build cars that drives themselves where directed, not cars that decide whether or not they feel like driving people around at all. Now, maybe it's possible that a task-oriented AI will at some point develop a personality. But there is no evidence that such a thing is possible. The "real life" personalities we observe in nature--ourselves--did not evolve from task-oriented machinery. It was the opposite: personality and will is observable in even simple animals; a beetle directs its own actions and tries above all else to preserve its own life. No one sets a task for it. Where does a beetle get that self-direction? Well, what is life itself? Where did it come from? We find ourselves in very deep waters; the depths of which I think AI-fearing folks don't seem to appreciate.
  - greenrd 11y ago
    I don't think it is the case that "AI-fearing folks" like myself don't appreciate what the alleged difficulties of building AGI might be. Rather, the burden of proof is on you, the doubters, to show that we need to spend no money at all on such risks, despite the magnitude of the harm that would be caused if we're right and nothing is done about the risks.

throw12122 11y ago

Is this a cult? I enjoy the was Halmos and Feynman talk about things. I've never read anything interesting from Yudkowsky...

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
I don't think it was a cult. LessWrong was an interesting place where interesting people gathered for a time; though LessWrong is basically on life support now. Gwern, Hal Finny, Wei Dai, Hannu Rajaniemi, Aaron Swartz, and Scott Alexander are some of the more well-known (outside of LessWrong) former members. It really was an interesting community for a while. There were meet-ups and Yudkowsky did solicit for his nonprofit, but it never seemed culty to me. And none of the people I mentioned ever seemed wary of criticizing Yudkowsky when they thought he was wrong. See, for example, Gwern's epic reply to Yudkowsky's post on automation: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_antifaq/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_a... This doesn't seem like the type of reply an entranced follower would give their guru. The fact that this very-critical comment got twice as many upvotes as the original post is telling of the attitude of the community as a whole.
- greenrd 11y ago
  Worth noting that the community has spread out into a kind of "diaspora": some have gone into effective altruism (many retaining their AI risk beliefs, especially the ones in California); some have been hired to work on existential risks full-time; Scott Alexander now has his own (impressive) blog and some LWers still follow him there and go to meetups that he attends... Of course, it's also probably true that some have since graduated, got jobs and simply have less time to read and post stuff on the internet any more.
dTal 11y ago
Depends what you mean by "cult". They are a defined group of people that display a substantial amount of in-group closeness (google "lesswrong cuddle puddle" if you have the stomach for it), possessing unusual views, organised around a central leader figure, that believes the leader's worldview is superior. Poisoned kool-aid, however, is unlikely. Make of it what you will.

retbull 11y ago

I've read a lot of his work, but I don't think it needs to be as complex as it is. I am smart, well educated, and well read and I often have to pull out a dictionary to read what he writes. Maybe I just need to read more but I don't feel like he is trying to communicate his ideas only listen to himself speak.