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I just got done listening to Eliezer Yudkowski on EconTalk (https://www.econtalk.org/eliezer-yudkowsky-on-the-dangers-of-ai/).
I say this as someone who's mostly convinced of Big Yud's doomerism: Good lord, what a train wreck of a conversation. I'll save you the bother of listening to it -- Russ Roberts starts by asking a fairly softball question of (paraphrasing) "Why do you think the AIs will kill all of humanity?" And Yudkowski responds by asking Roberts "Explain why you think they won't, and I'll poke your argument until it falls apart." Russ didn't really give strong arguments, and the rest of the interview repeated this pattern a couple times. THIS IS NOT THE WAY HUMANS HAVE CONVERSATIONS! Your goal was not logically demolish Russ Roberts' faulty thinking, but to use Roberts as a sounding board to get your ideas to his huge audience, and you completely failed. Roberts wasn't convinced by the end, and I'm sure EY came off as a crank to anyone who was new to him.
I hope EY lurks here, or maybe someone close to him does. Here's my advice: if you want to convince people who are not already steeped in your philosophy you need to have a short explanation of your thesis that you can rattle off in about 5 minutes that doesn't use any jargon the median congresscritter doesn't already know. You should workshop it on people who don't know who you are, don't know any math or computer programming and who haven't read the Sequences, and when the next podcast host asks you why AIs will kill us all, you should be able to give a tight, logical-ish argument that gets the conversation going in a way that an audience can find interesting. 5 minutes can't cover everything so different people will poke and prod your argument in various ways, and that's when you fill in the gaps and poke holes in their thinking, something you did to great effect with Dwarkesh Patel (https://youtube.com/watch?v=41SUp-TRVlg&pp=ygUJeXVka293c2tp). That was a much better interview, mostly because Patel came in with much more knowledge and asked much better questions. I know you're probably tired of going over the same points ad nauseam, but every host will have audience members who've never heard of you or your jargon, and you have about 5 minutes to hold their interest or they'll press "next".
I have long believed it makes no difference if what you say is right or wrong, but who says it. I think this is why so many people tolerate Eliezer's AI-doom argument even though it's unscientific, because he's so smart (or at least comes off as being so smart) that people will give him a lot of benefit of the doubt.
Russ Roberts interviews have always been underwhelming. I to listened to a few...just doesn't do it for me. He cannot give strong arguments because his scientific background is weak and his personality is not forcefull.
Unpopular take: The whole thing is a grift. The goal is not to convince anyone of anything but to donate to his foundation/non-profit. He wants someone with deep pockets like Vitalik Buterin, Elon Musk, Theil to donate. I don't think he believes the things he espouses.
EY can give a tight argument, but it's lacking the necessary specifics. If someone wanted to puncture his argument they would just press for details, or accuse him of making an unfalsifiable claim. EY is shifting the burden if proof to everyone else to prove he is wrong.
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