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Can someone tell me more about the ideological (theological?) assumptions underpinning these questions? They seem to come from a very peculiar understanding of

Can someone tell me more about the ideological (theological?) assumptions underpinning these questions? They seem to come from a very peculiar understanding of "social impact".

jessriedel 6y ago
80,000 Hours would associate themselves with "Effective Altruism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism https://80000hours.org/about/#how-are-you-funded https://80000hours.org/about/#how-are-you-funded The principles of effective altruism are largely consequentialist, utilitarian, cosmopolitan, and humanist, although none of those fit exactly right.
- notahacker 6y ago
  But in practice, this list of questions reflects less the principles of Effective Altruism and more the overlap between people calling themselves Effective Altruists and other personal and career preoccupations. That's how you get four of the six "most impactful" questions in politics and international relations being about AI and one of the others involving representation for 'sentient nonhumans'. (Suffice to say this is not a list a political scientist, or even your average consequentialist utilitarian cosmopolitan humanist who read more newspapers than AI papers would propose as research priorities in politics and IR. Probably great research questions to get you a popular blog and a job in a Silicon Valley research institute though)
  - jessriedel 6y ago
    Although all organizations are influenced by their particular constituency, the guys at 80k have been led to these causes by particular philosophical and empirical arguments, which they explain in the website at great length, not (say) because they all used to be ML researchers. (They do not have technical backgrounds.) You can certainly disagree with the arguments, and they would be first to agree that their conclusions (although not premises) are radical. But more importantly, I think if you just went and talked to random political scientists, you would find they actually had not thought very hard about what the most important causes are. If you ask them, they would come up with something on the spot. Indeed, political scientists don't at all seem to be the correct experts for this question.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      > But more importantly, I think if you just went and talked to random political scientists, you would find they actually had not thought very hard about what the most important causes are. If you ask them, they would come up with something on the spot. Indeed, political scientists don't at all seem to be the correct experts for this question. Did you just come up with this on the spot? ; ) But, I agree! Personally, I'd ask the historians! ;)
      - jessriedel 6y ago
        No, the questions you're raising have been asked (reasonably) by many. I really do think the EA folks are doing something novel, and there is a reasonable but incorrect intuition that all of this must have been sorted out before (so that if they're getting unconventional answers they must have made a mistake in their assumptions or process). Step 1 in finding the highest impact thing to do is being serious about establishing cause and effect, and historians by their own admission rarely try to do that. (Cliometrics is a bit better.)
        adamsea 6y ago
        Interesting. If you have time could you share some articles / sources / examples / something to lend some solidity to what you're arguing, and also so that I can follow up and learn more? TBH I'd make an argument for the elimination of war being a huge way to better the world. Imagine: - No invasion of Iraq. - No bungling of the invasion of Afghanistan (or no invasion) - No Syrian war and millions of refugees. War has huge negative ripple effects in addition to all of the deaths it causes; societies and communities are destroyed, whose effects echo for generations. It consumes insane amounts of resources. If we want to think big, that's what I'd think about. Maybe even focus on exclusively. I mean, who do you think is going to buck against checks and balances on scary intelligent AI research? Defense-funded research. Sure, EA talks about international relations, etc, but, where's the study on the cost/benefits of world-wide pacifism, if we're theorizing here? Part of my skepticism of all this is because there is so much thought put into bettering the world over time: - All the religions, which still undergird the various systems of morals/laws we have. - To name a few philosophers / social thinkers who directly discussed making things "better": - Plato - Hobbes - Marx - Habermas (I haven't read him, but I've read about him; big on liberal democracy and the post WWII European system, I think) That's a pretty hefty list right there. That's not even a full accounting of the Western philosophers/thinkers. Not to even mention the non-Western philosophers/thinkers. And, tbh, I think it's easy for non-historians, or scholars who don't focus on political science or political philosophy/theory to just write the field off; and, IMHO the "hard" sciences and tech/CS folk in particular have a tendency to do this. So I'm always a bit skeptical.
  - 80386 6y ago
    It's also how you get a list at all. I don't like EA's "Jeremy Bentham solved philosophy forever" worldview, but at least it gets them thinking big, you know? Is anyone else making these lists?
- iskander 6y ago
  It's certainly a...peculiar...belief system.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Can someone tell me more about the ideological (theological?) assumptions underpinning these questions? They seem to come from a very peculiar understanding of "social impact".

jessriedel 6y ago

80,000 Hours would associate themselves with "Effective Altruism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism https://80000hours.org/about/#how-are-you-funded https://80000hours.org/about/#how-are-you-funded The principles of effective altruism are largely consequentialist, utilitarian, cosmopolitan, and humanist, although none of those fit exactly right.

notahacker 6y ago
But in practice, this list of questions reflects less the principles of Effective Altruism and more the overlap between people calling themselves Effective Altruists and other personal and career preoccupations. That's how you get four of the six "most impactful" questions in politics and international relations being about AI and one of the others involving representation for 'sentient nonhumans'. (Suffice to say this is not a list a political scientist, or even your average consequentialist utilitarian cosmopolitan humanist who read more newspapers than AI papers would propose as research priorities in politics and IR. Probably great research questions to get you a popular blog and a job in a Silicon Valley research institute though)
- jessriedel 6y ago
  Although all organizations are influenced by their particular constituency, the guys at 80k have been led to these causes by particular philosophical and empirical arguments, which they explain in the website at great length, not (say) because they all used to be ML researchers. (They do not have technical backgrounds.) You can certainly disagree with the arguments, and they would be first to agree that their conclusions (although not premises) are radical. But more importantly, I think if you just went and talked to random political scientists, you would find they actually had not thought very hard about what the most important causes are. If you ask them, they would come up with something on the spot. Indeed, political scientists don't at all seem to be the correct experts for this question.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    > But more importantly, I think if you just went and talked to random political scientists, you would find they actually had not thought very hard about what the most important causes are. If you ask them, they would come up with something on the spot. Indeed, political scientists don't at all seem to be the correct experts for this question. Did you just come up with this on the spot? ; ) But, I agree! Personally, I'd ask the historians! ;)
    - jessriedel 6y ago
      No, the questions you're raising have been asked (reasonably) by many. I really do think the EA folks are doing something novel, and there is a reasonable but incorrect intuition that all of this must have been sorted out before (so that if they're getting unconventional answers they must have made a mistake in their assumptions or process). Step 1 in finding the highest impact thing to do is being serious about establishing cause and effect, and historians by their own admission rarely try to do that. (Cliometrics is a bit better.)
      - adamsea 6y ago
        Interesting. If you have time could you share some articles / sources / examples / something to lend some solidity to what you're arguing, and also so that I can follow up and learn more? TBH I'd make an argument for the elimination of war being a huge way to better the world. Imagine: - No invasion of Iraq. - No bungling of the invasion of Afghanistan (or no invasion) - No Syrian war and millions of refugees. War has huge negative ripple effects in addition to all of the deaths it causes; societies and communities are destroyed, whose effects echo for generations. It consumes insane amounts of resources. If we want to think big, that's what I'd think about. Maybe even focus on exclusively. I mean, who do you think is going to buck against checks and balances on scary intelligent AI research? Defense-funded research. Sure, EA talks about international relations, etc, but, where's the study on the cost/benefits of world-wide pacifism, if we're theorizing here? Part of my skepticism of all this is because there is so much thought put into bettering the world over time: - All the religions, which still undergird the various systems of morals/laws we have. - To name a few philosophers / social thinkers who directly discussed making things "better": - Plato - Hobbes - Marx - Habermas (I haven't read him, but I've read about him; big on liberal democracy and the post WWII European system, I think) That's a pretty hefty list right there. That's not even a full accounting of the Western philosophers/thinkers. Not to even mention the non-Western philosophers/thinkers. And, tbh, I think it's easy for non-historians, or scholars who don't focus on political science or political philosophy/theory to just write the field off; and, IMHO the "hard" sciences and tech/CS folk in particular have a tendency to do this. So I'm always a bit skeptical.
- 80386 6y ago
  It's also how you get a list at all. I don't like EA's "Jeremy Bentham solved philosophy forever" worldview, but at least it gets them thinking big, you know? Is anyone else making these lists?
iskander 6y ago
It's certainly a...peculiar...belief system.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]