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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:
AI X risk is just this round of global warming catastrophism(we're going to be underwater by
200020122020[oh wait, that was a different ridiculous hysteria we'd all be better off ignoring]) because seriously, datacenters are fragile and require constant inputs from outside that we can just cut off. Like against Skynet we can take some collateral damage if we've got to. It's not worth worrying about, it's just another made up problem to justify giving ridiculous people more power. In this case, a literal sex cult.And what's that got to do with the price of fish and chips?
Even if we concede arguendo your Views on sexual morality, "_______'s thoughts on AI risk are invalid because _______ engages in immoral sexual practises" is literally an ad hominem argument.
How about "X's thoughts on AI risk should be downgraded because they put [a certain set of sexual practices] above all reproach and thus [apocalyptic AI risk] rank less important to them than [continuing a certain set of sexual practices]."
Also depending on the exact nature of those sexual practices, it can be a pretty good argument for keeping them as far away from the levers of power as humanly possible. I think AI poses severe but not existential risks. Either way letting the EA/rat group set AI morality will be net-negative for the majority of humanity.
“…unlike the rest of humanity, who can definitely be trusted to rank apocalyptic AI risk ahead of their own sexual practices?”
Unless you can show a nexus between the practices and the handling of risk, ad hominem arguments are symmetric. Disqualify everyone who thinks more about pussy than x-risk and you’ll be left only with the scheming eunuchs.
The eunuchs are the ones disproportionately involved in creating the AI in the first place.
The selection effect is actually really noteworthy here because all modern eunuchs are self-made. (They don't actually call themselves eunuchs these days unless maybe you're on the WPATH mailing list- but they are very womanly men all the same. Perhaps the way certain scientific types act to give birth to some massive project is uterus-envy?)
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Sounds like a win. When have the scheming eunuchs ever led us wrong?
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That risks running into the Heckler's Veto: "I will ignore your warnings of potential catastrophe unless you forswear any lifestyle choices of which I disapprove; therefore, if you do not change your lifestyle to fit my demands, you rank prevention of catastrophe as less important than your lifestyle choices." Giving in to such a demand will then invite every wowser within 20,000 kilometres to make similar demands regarding whatever bee they happen to have in their bonnets, and once you've paid the Dane-Geld, you'll never be rid of the Dane.
It would be, if they were engaging in the sort of things described in the more lurid claims circulating among the Blue Tribe regarding Epstein's clients. When the practises in question entirely involve mutually consenting adults, whose standards for consent are probably a fair bit less flexible than the median, the argument starts to look a lot flimsier.
Funny, this is exactly how I feel about global warming 'enthusiasts'.
Of course, the difference between this and that is that said 'enthusiasts' have an obviously massive amount to gain politically from most human activity being banned like they want; the 'ban AI' faction isn't quite there yet (and dependent on who it takes down first- maybe they're on the side of weird sex, maybe they're not) so it's not clear if the origins of the group will be a liability.
The usual playbook here is "change the rules, accuse of rape ex post facto", so the truth's not going to matter anyway. Of course, the weird sex people (or at least, their allies) are the same ones pushing in the #fightFor25 direction more generally, so maybe they don't have to worry about that for the foreseeable future.
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The problem here is that some of your interlocutors might be actual Christians, who would really rather die (along with everyone else) than abide unapologetic sexual impropriety.
Aren't Christians supposed to get the world to chug along until at least the Second Coming before letting it explode?
-C.S. Lewis, On Living in an Atomic Age (1948)
There's an upper limit on how concerned Christians are supposed to be about physical survival.
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I think the degree of focus on the Second Coming differs quite a bit between the various branches; it's well-known because a certain common type of modern US Evangelical is obsessed with it, but more of our Christian posters seem to be various forms of traditionalists who as far as I can tell don't put a lot of emphasis on it.
(To @SubstantialFrivolity, I imagine they might see it as something that goes beyond mere "dealing with people", like "enabling".)
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Yes and no. Yes, we are stewards of the world and owe it to God to treat his gift with respect. But no, that is not an absolute goal - this world is not our home, and if there is a conflict between our spiritual obligations and our material ones, the spiritual ones take precedence.
Note that I'm not saying Christians have an obligation to avoid dealing with people who do weird sex stuff. Just saying if someone did conclude that, even the fact that it might blow up the world as a consequence would not override the spiritual obligation.
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