10 ms·

I feel the difference is that to a first approximation, ai alignment folks tend to be grey tribe and ai ethics people tend to be blue or rainbow tribe. The sch

I feel the difference is that to a first approximation, ai alignment folks tend to be grey tribe and ai ethics people tend to be blue or rainbow tribe. The schism isn't a technical disagreement about ai, it's a disagreement between subcultures about what values are important.

Dylan16807 4y ago
Am I supposed to know these terms?
- xyzzy123 4y ago
  Sorry, yes that wasn't clear. Scott Alexander coined most of them in "I can tolerate anything except the outgroup" [1] Red & blue are exactly what a U.S reader would think they are. "Grey" is an attempt by Scott to define something else, loosely hacker-ish / rationalist (you can tell who he thinks the cool people are). "Rainbow tribe" I just made up, but I think you can guess what I mean now based on context. Alignment tends to be "rationalist panic" and ethics is a more traditional "moral panic". I believe both perspectives are valuable. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200219044501/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200219044501/https://slatestar...
  - ben_w 4y ago
    > Red & blue are exactly what a U.S reader would think they are. As a non-American, only the fact you wrote "American" makes me think democrat-republican; but for that I would've thought of the similarly named TV tropes entry: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMor... > "Rainbow tribe" I just made up, but I think you can guess what I mean now based on context. 50-50 this is either a LGBT+ reference or a reference to all the other color schemes used by various political parties around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour
  - thrown123098 4y ago
    Odly enough at the wedding of a friend you could tell his friends were from the grey tribe because they all wore monochrome and his wife's friends from the rainbow tribe because they all wore rainbows. There was no mixture between the two groups.
  - chaps 4y ago
    This is still wildly unclear.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Gray: confederate army Blue: union army Red: British army Rainbow: Lovely, prismatic army that covers everyone else? I still don't understand. You're saying words of import without landing the plane, IMHO.
    - travisjungroth 4y ago
      Rainbow was pointless for him to introduce since he then said "blue or rainbow" and rainbow would definitely fold into blue. Read the essay if you want the full story. Short version: Blue is a cluster of Democrat/left/liberal/urban. Red is a cluster of Republican/right/conservative/rural. Gray is a smaller niche of like Libertarian/Silicon Valley/nerds. Ethics vs alignment is actually a perfect example of the Blue/Gray split. How dare you act like your science fiction fantasies are real when this tech is harming marginalized communities? vs. How dare you waste time on mandating representation in generated art when this thing is going to kill us all?
  - sgerenser 4y ago
    My interpretation: Red = Republicans/Conservatives Blue = Democrats/Liberals (in the US sense, not classical liberals) Grey = Liberterian/Rationalists Rainbow = LGBTQ+, usually a subset of the Blue tribe in the US
yanderekko 4y ago
>The schism isn't a technical disagreement about ai, it's a disagreement between subcultures about what values are important. I wish it were so, but I think the tribal lines create a lot of motivated cognition about the technical details. I don't think there are many blue tribe members who say "yes we agree that rogue AI has a 10+% chance of destroying humanity by 2040, but I still think that it's more important to focus on disparate impact research than AI alignment." They instead just either assign trivial probabilities to existential risks occurring, or just choose not to think about them at all.

Dylan16807 4y ago

Am I supposed to know these terms?

xyzzy123 4y ago
Sorry, yes that wasn't clear. Scott Alexander coined most of them in "I can tolerate anything except the outgroup" [1] Red & blue are exactly what a U.S reader would think they are. "Grey" is an attempt by Scott to define something else, loosely hacker-ish / rationalist (you can tell who he thinks the cool people are). "Rainbow tribe" I just made up, but I think you can guess what I mean now based on context. Alignment tends to be "rationalist panic" and ethics is a more traditional "moral panic". I believe both perspectives are valuable. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200219044501/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200219044501/https://slatestar...
- ben_w 4y ago
  > Red & blue are exactly what a U.S reader would think they are. As a non-American, only the fact you wrote "American" makes me think democrat-republican; but for that I would've thought of the similarly named TV tropes entry: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMor... > "Rainbow tribe" I just made up, but I think you can guess what I mean now based on context. 50-50 this is either a LGBT+ reference or a reference to all the other color schemes used by various political parties around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour
- thrown123098 4y ago
  Odly enough at the wedding of a friend you could tell his friends were from the grey tribe because they all wore monochrome and his wife's friends from the rainbow tribe because they all wore rainbows. There was no mixture between the two groups.
- chaps 4y ago
  This is still wildly unclear.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Gray: confederate army Blue: union army Red: British army Rainbow: Lovely, prismatic army that covers everyone else? I still don't understand. You're saying words of import without landing the plane, IMHO.
  - travisjungroth 4y ago
    Rainbow was pointless for him to introduce since he then said "blue or rainbow" and rainbow would definitely fold into blue. Read the essay if you want the full story. Short version: Blue is a cluster of Democrat/left/liberal/urban. Red is a cluster of Republican/right/conservative/rural. Gray is a smaller niche of like Libertarian/Silicon Valley/nerds. Ethics vs alignment is actually a perfect example of the Blue/Gray split. How dare you act like your science fiction fantasies are real when this tech is harming marginalized communities? vs. How dare you waste time on mandating representation in generated art when this thing is going to kill us all?
- sgerenser 4y ago
  My interpretation: Red = Republicans/Conservatives Blue = Democrats/Liberals (in the US sense, not classical liberals) Grey = Liberterian/Rationalists Rainbow = LGBTQ+, usually a subset of the Blue tribe in the US

yanderekko 4y ago

>The schism isn't a technical disagreement about ai, it's a disagreement between subcultures about what values are important. I wish it were so, but I think the tribal lines create a lot of motivated cognition about the technical details. I don't think there are many blue tribe members who say "yes we agree that rogue AI has a 10+% chance of destroying humanity by 2040, but I still think that it's more important to focus on disparate impact research than AI alignment." They instead just either assign trivial probabilities to existential risks occurring, or just choose not to think about them at all.