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Scott Alexander, the guy who hosted the Culture War Thread on his blog slatestarcodex before that landed him in so much heat (from the woke left) that it was moved to reddit under the name /r/theMotte (and from there, subsequently, to themotte.org to preempt a reddit crackdown) comes usually across as a kind and considerate person to me. Charitable interpretations are very much his thing. While he has always engaged in CW topics on occasion, his forays deep into the trenches are rare (and in my impression have become rarer compared to the SSC days).
Apparently, there is a person called Steven Pinker. I have been vaguely aware that there was a book called The Better Angels of Our Nature which was probably authored by someone, but he was not someone I really had on my radar.
From the WP article, he seems solidly Grey Tribe. Believes in a computational theory of mind, Ashkenazi Intelligence Hypothesis, critical of both the woke left (cancellations) and the MAGA right (foreign student restrictions).
The main topic where he disagrees with Scott Alexander is AI x-risk.
Scott has now responded, and his reponse is a bit less than maximum charitable.
While Scott is diligent enough with his technical points, it is clear that he is personally hurt by Pinker's decision to ridicule AI x-risk. So his post is also a broadside fired against him. He cites Garfinkel et al 2017 who "proved" that machines will never be larger than humans using common philosophical arguments for AI being harmless.
Scott points out that while Pinker is busy berating the LW crowd for distracting from the more mundane risks of AI, x-risk advocates are willing to work hand in hand with groups with a more practical focus to combat pro-AI PACs like Leading the Future.
On model welfare (which is certainly not the core topic of the x-risk advocates):
He accuses Pinker of endorsing the "lowest quality voices", quoting Claire Lehmann:
Or
It ends with Scott seeming seriously willing to duel Pinker:
Scott has admitted in the comments that this is already the toned-down version of the post he originally wrote. I think that while he held back verbally (nobody get's called a "Vogon spy in a skin suit" this time), he uses his craft well to show his frustration.
For what it's worth, I think that Pinker is correct that Eliezer is in fact over-confident in p(doom|default-ASI). Just like Pinker is when he declares that any fear of doom is ridiculous.
The main difference is that for practical purposes, it does not matter much if your p(doom) is 0.99 or 0.05. Both would be pressing problems whose solution is the most important thing in the world.
Eliezer was bullish on AI capabilities when that was far out of the Overton window, back when the machines could beat humans at chess at most. Steven Pinker was tweeting that "deep learning has probably peaked" in 2019.
This might be giving too much credit to Pinker, but here is Clarke's first law:
This was probably the best post of Scott's that I've read so far this year. I don't know if that's testament to how good this post was, or how far he's fallen since his peak. I also don't even bother reading many of his new posts anymore. I'm also not a paid subscriber, so maybe the really good stuff is hidden behind the paywall.
I agree with Scott that many of Pinker's arguments as to why superintelligence will never happen seem rather facile, and often exhibit isolated demands for rigour.
That's funny you think that, because to me this is one of the worst posts of Scott's I've ever read, and emblematic of his general slide in quality. I guess the prose is good, no one would deny he's a talented writer, but the curious and empathetic blogger I fell in love with reading 10 years ago is nowhere in sight. He's been replaced with an AI activist determined to burn through a decade-plus of good will in the defense of an apocalyptic sex cult.
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Could just be the target. His attitude towards Pinker reminds me of his attitude towards 2010s-era leftism, a complicated mix of "You were the chosen one!" and "You were my brother ... I loved you" with "you have become the very thing you swore to destroy" and "I will do what I must". That passionate mix of love and hate even elicited tolerable prose from George Lucas; of course it's going to be magic in the hands of a good writer!
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