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I think the point is that Yud and the rationalist community have put themselves in an awkward position where their lifestyle now depends on "p(doom) is big" bei

by sauwan 11d ago

I think the point is that Yud and the rationalist community have put themselves in an awkward position where their lifestyle now depends on "p(doom) is big" being true. Which means they can't necessarily be trusted to give unbiased updates on the true level of risk we're facing as new data and information comes up. Can "ASI will inevitably kill us all" be falsifiable before we create ASI? If not, then what separates it from religion? Not sure how much I agree with that position, but that's just how I understood it.

Kinrany 11d ago
> Can "ASI will inevitably kill us all" be falsifiable before we create ASI? No, but there are decent proxies, like "Alice who is X standard deviations smarter than Bob will win >50% of the time at game Y even given a disadvantage that would make her chances <5% if she was playing against someone equally smart". I've thought about this analogy for less than five minutes, so it's far from perfect. Point is, ASI being made of silicon isn't very central to the problem. There are lots of analogies that are falsifiable, and "ASI will kill us all" can be decomposed into a simple and bulletproof composition of falsifiable beliefs, even if it is too specific to be itself directly falsifiable.
- mcint 9d ago
  Uh oh, your opinions are merely part of the funnel to the sex cult. Can we really trust them? /s
Viliam1234 10d ago
> their lifestyle now depends on "p(doom) is big" being true How? Suppose that for the following 20 or even 100 years nothing happens. The AIs miraculously stay as they are today, the further progress turns out to be impossible, there will be no more agents hacking various websites, no cyber warfare involving AI agents, nothing. There will be the year 2026, forever. How would any of that impact the lifestyle of anyone in the rationalist community? Please be more specific with your accusation. (Seems like the rationalists are simultaneously the dark lords of TESCREAL, pulling the strings of the world's most powerful billionaires and politicians, but also irrelevant weird nerds who can be ruined at any moment by a smart blogger explaining how their opinions are silly, or even that they know each other.)
- nullc 9d ago
  As an example, in that example who pays for the orgy compound on Telegraph Ave?
rphv 10d ago
> what separates it from religion? The rational methods used to establish a large P(doom). To definitively falsify the claim, humanity would need to live alongside superintelligence forever without it wiping us out. That doesn't mean we can't be pretty darn sure though, in the same way that we can be pretty darn sure that nuclear war could end civilization.
- nullc 9d ago
  Those "rational methods" are essentially just pascal's wager. You stick some ~infinitely bad outcome (nasal daemons torturing simulations of you and everyone you love for all time) and/or ~infinitely good outcome (perfect paradise for as many sentient minds as could fit in the physical universe), then you can get whatever conclusion you want by multiplying any finite probability by these things, and even give yourself bonus asspats for being conservative by adding several order of magnitude fudge factors against your claims. The rationalist doom and sex cult uses convoluted mathematics inspired language to justify their faith-- but at the end of the day it's just faith no matter how they dress it up.
  - hollerith 9d ago
    No, it's not Pascal's wager because Pascal's wager works even when the probabilities are tiny whereas Eliezer's p(doom) is about 99% unless AI "progress" is shut down and kept shut long enough that the current crop of AI researchers is going to have to find something else to do for a career. In other words, it's not Pascal's wager if the very bad outcome is what you naturally expect to happen. And what I just wrote applies to not just Eliezer and his allies: I don't know a single person or a single published argument that has ever used Pascal's-wager-like argumentation to argue that AI "progress" needs to be stopped. Eliezer is the author of a blog post titled "Pascal's mugging", but that blog post and any follow-up discussion are completely silent on the dangers of AI.
- hollerith 9d ago
  I wish you'd used "very large asteroid strike on Earth" rather than "nuclear war" because although nuclear war will probably make thing "uncivilized" for a while, I'm pretty sure human civilization bounces right back after even the largest realistic nuclear war.
joshjob42 10d ago
Why does their lifestyle require p(doom) to be large? Because they work at orgs focused on AI safety? I'm not sure what the claim is here.
- nullc 9d ago
  Because they depend on a supply of anxiety fueled doomers to both fund their lifestyle and provide a supply of willing participants for their control and fetish games.
tripzilch 10d ago
you say "falsifiable" as if it holds some important key, but the concept is really not applicable to predictions that by their very nature, can only ever have one data point (doesn't mean that it's not a religion or it is, but rather I mean it being "falsifiable" or not, doesn't carry any information to that regard)
hollerith 9d ago
There's are many people with high p(human extinction) whose salary does not depend on their continuing to profess a high p(extinction) -- me for example. Also Yud's friends have promised to pay him what he is earning now if the organization he works for ever has to reduce his salary because the organization lacks funding. They did this to neutralize the financial incentive he would otherwise have to hesitate to announce that his p(extinction) had dropped.

by sauwan 11d ago

Kinrany 11d ago

> Can "ASI will inevitably kill us all" be falsifiable before we create ASI? No, but there are decent proxies, like "Alice who is X standard deviations smarter than Bob will win >50% of the time at game Y even given a disadvantage that would make her chances <5% if she was playing against someone equally smart". I've thought about this analogy for less than five minutes, so it's far from perfect. Point is, ASI being made of silicon isn't very central to the problem. There are lots of analogies that are falsifiable, and "ASI will kill us all" can be decomposed into a simple and bulletproof composition of falsifiable beliefs, even if it is too specific to be itself directly falsifiable.

mcint 9d ago
Uh oh, your opinions are merely part of the funnel to the sex cult. Can we really trust them? /s

Viliam1234 10d ago

> their lifestyle now depends on "p(doom) is big" being true How? Suppose that for the following 20 or even 100 years nothing happens. The AIs miraculously stay as they are today, the further progress turns out to be impossible, there will be no more agents hacking various websites, no cyber warfare involving AI agents, nothing. There will be the year 2026, forever. How would any of that impact the lifestyle of anyone in the rationalist community? Please be more specific with your accusation. (Seems like the rationalists are simultaneously the dark lords of TESCREAL, pulling the strings of the world's most powerful billionaires and politicians, but also irrelevant weird nerds who can be ruined at any moment by a smart blogger explaining how their opinions are silly, or even that they know each other.)

nullc 9d ago
As an example, in that example who pays for the orgy compound on Telegraph Ave?

rphv 10d ago

> what separates it from religion? The rational methods used to establish a large P(doom). To definitively falsify the claim, humanity would need to live alongside superintelligence forever without it wiping us out. That doesn't mean we can't be pretty darn sure though, in the same way that we can be pretty darn sure that nuclear war could end civilization.

nullc 9d ago
Those "rational methods" are essentially just pascal's wager. You stick some ~infinitely bad outcome (nasal daemons torturing simulations of you and everyone you love for all time) and/or ~infinitely good outcome (perfect paradise for as many sentient minds as could fit in the physical universe), then you can get whatever conclusion you want by multiplying any finite probability by these things, and even give yourself bonus asspats for being conservative by adding several order of magnitude fudge factors against your claims. The rationalist doom and sex cult uses convoluted mathematics inspired language to justify their faith-- but at the end of the day it's just faith no matter how they dress it up.
- hollerith 9d ago
  No, it's not Pascal's wager because Pascal's wager works even when the probabilities are tiny whereas Eliezer's p(doom) is about 99% unless AI "progress" is shut down and kept shut long enough that the current crop of AI researchers is going to have to find something else to do for a career. In other words, it's not Pascal's wager if the very bad outcome is what you naturally expect to happen. And what I just wrote applies to not just Eliezer and his allies: I don't know a single person or a single published argument that has ever used Pascal's-wager-like argumentation to argue that AI "progress" needs to be stopped. Eliezer is the author of a blog post titled "Pascal's mugging", but that blog post and any follow-up discussion are completely silent on the dangers of AI.
hollerith 9d ago
I wish you'd used "very large asteroid strike on Earth" rather than "nuclear war" because although nuclear war will probably make thing "uncivilized" for a while, I'm pretty sure human civilization bounces right back after even the largest realistic nuclear war.

joshjob42 10d ago

Why does their lifestyle require p(doom) to be large? Because they work at orgs focused on AI safety? I'm not sure what the claim is here.

nullc 9d ago
Because they depend on a supply of anxiety fueled doomers to both fund their lifestyle and provide a supply of willing participants for their control and fetish games.

tripzilch 10d ago

you say "falsifiable" as if it holds some important key, but the concept is really not applicable to predictions that by their very nature, can only ever have one data point (doesn't mean that it's not a religion or it is, but rather I mean it being "falsifiable" or not, doesn't carry any information to that regard)

hollerith 9d ago

There's are many people with high p(human extinction) whose salary does not depend on their continuing to profess a high p(extinction) -- me for example. Also Yud's friends have promised to pay him what he is earning now if the organization he works for ever has to reduce his salary because the organization lacks funding. They did this to neutralize the financial incentive he would otherwise have to hesitate to announce that his p(extinction) had dropped.